On the Outside Looking In
by LittleFairy78
Summary: I thought I had seen everything there was to see in my job. And then I met those two men, and learned that there was a whole world of things I had never seen or known.
1. Nothing I hadn't seen before

**On the Outside Looking in**

Summary: I thought I had seen everything there was to see in my job. And then I met those two men, and learned that there was a whole world of things I had never seen or known.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural. All characters belong to Kripke, The CW, and many other people who all aren't me. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made with this story.

Author's Note: I know that this perspective has been done before. But it's the kind of perspective that I always particularly loved, and one that I think is particularly interesting concerning the boys and their relationship. It's one of the reason why I love the episode "Roadkill" so much.

Rating as usual due to some language. I think, at least. Later on, probably :D

The story is set somewhere in season 2, I think, if only for the reason that it's supposed to happen before any deals were made, but definitely after season 1. But I don't think the timeline needs to be any more specific to be understood.

No spoilers that I could think of right now.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Nothing I hadn't seen before**

After twenty years in the job, I was fairly confident that I had seen everything there was to see. There were always variations, subtle differences, but I was sure that nothing could really surprise me anymore. I had worked in a Los Angeles hospital for nearly fifteen years, ten of those in the ER. I had seen it all – the shootings, the stabbings, the family dramas, the car accidents, the drug addicts. That, and much more.

And I enjoyed my job, even though some might think that impossible. I still do. I like working in the ER. It's the place where the help I can provide, meager as it might seem at times, is the most immediate. I can see the effects of what I do, on the patients and also on the family members who need whatever little thing they can find to hold on to in those dark hours. And selfishly, I admit that a big part of working in the ER is that there's not enough time form attachments. Patients come, they are taken care of, and somebody else shoulders the responsibility of the aftercare. It's not part of my job to connect to the patients other than what is needed for the short time that they are in my care.

It makes it easier when death makes one of his frequent rounds through the hospital.

I've seen other nurses get attached to patients over the time, seen them form bonds where there should have been a professional distance. It's a dangerous thing. And it becomes a blow to the guts when death strikes. No, I have always been most content working in the ER. I could never work pediatrics, either. Seeing children dead on arrival in the ER, or being there when they die before we can do anything to save them is bad enough. Seeing them suffer would have driven me out of this job a long time ago.

In fact, the children were the main reason why I eventually quit my job in LA. I loved the big city, but my wife didn't want the children to grow up there. So we moved, and I got a new job. Still in the ER, but this ER is like a different world when compared to LA. It's a county hospital, about twenty miles from the town where we live in now. And of course it's all still there – the car crashes, the family tragedies, the domestic disturbances, even the occasional shooting or stabbing. And in the ER, it doesn't matter if it's a hunting accident of a gang confrontation. A bullet is a bullet. Lead and high velocity don't care about the intent, and neither do I.

But here, everything is happening on a much smaller scale, and in a much slower pace. And over the past five years, I've gotten used to that. After all, with so many years of experience in the job, I had seen everything there was to see. Or so I thought.

Until the day that I met the two men who taught me that maybe I hadn't seen it all just yet, and that I had been missing out on something important without even knowing it.

It was one of those ordinary nights at work. Not a slow night by any means, those were rare and far in between. But it was one of those nights when the most urgent emergency was a minor car accident that forced a concussed middle-aged housewife to spend the night for observation and her husband to get treated for a minor cut on his arm. It wasn't one of my cases, though. I was assisting one of the attendants with various cases of the sniffles and indulged a hypochondriac regular of ours by taking his blood pressure and a blood sample.

My shift was nearing its end when a yell from the main entrance to the ER drew everybody's attention.

"I need help here!"

It were the magic words in any ER worldwide, and like a siren call they made me look up from the paperwork I was filling out. And what I saw belied my firm belief that I had seen everything before. People coming into the emergency room yelling for help I had seen plenty in my life. And I had seen parents carry in their children when they had rushed to the hospital themselves instead of waiting for an ambulance.

But I had never before seen a picture quite like this.

There were two men standing just inside the sliding glass doors. Or rather, one of them was standing inside the doors. The other was a limp weight in the first man's arms. That was the first thing that burned itself into my mind. That, and the blood. There was a lot of blood, spread liberally on both of them, though most of it seemed to cling to the unconscious man. That amount of blood was not good, and it didn't take a medical degree, or nearly twenty years of experience as a nurse to know that.

The man had stopped just inside the doors after his call for help, his unconscious counterpart held tightly in his arms.

Again something I had not seen before.

It was relatively easy to carry a child like that, held against your chest, but being the father of exuberating ten year old twins, I know from experience that it's much harder than it should be, smaller weight notwithstanding. Carrying an adult…well, let's say that I know it's far more difficult than TV wants to make you believe. It's not like the carrying the bride over the threshold, not even remotely. A limp body is hard to maneuver, let alone carry. There's a reason the phrase _dead weight_ came into being.

The man was holding the unconscious man firmly, though the other guy by no means looked to be small or a lightweight. But he was holding him tightly with one hand under his knees, the other around his back, the blood-covered face nestled carefully in the crook of his neck. He didn't waver, didn't show the strain that carrying a fully grown man had to have on him. Instead, he seemed attentive, yet at the same time jumpy and defensive. It didn't make immediate sense to me, but I had learned to trust my instincts over the years. Right now I was simply taking things in, there would be a time to think about what it all meant, later.

It was maybe a second that I stared at the two men and took it all in. A second, two at the most, trying to understand what I was seeing and failing to come up with an appropriate category from previous experience. That was all I allowed myself before professionalism kicked in. The attending doctor was already moving over towards the two men, someone brought a gurney, and we started doing our job.

The man had come into the ER yelling for help, yet when we approached him with the gurney and another nurse and I tried to help him put his unconscious friend down on it, he seemed strangely hesitant. It was completely irrational, not to mention that in my experience people were mostly glad to surrender bleeding and unconscious people into the care of those who carry a medical degree. But not so this guy. He did put his friend – at least that's what I thought them to be back then – down on the gurney at last, but the small movement seemed like a huge step for him, one that he had to force himself to take.

The man was barely lying on the gurney when we started rolling him away from the doors, towards the closest treatment room. The usual assertion of vitals and barrage of questions followed. Name, age, what had happened, all that. But my mind was on the job, and while I listened, only the things that pertained my immediate tasks really registered. No allergies – good. High blood loss – not so good. Blood pressure too low, respiration shallow, unconscious, not good at all. This was not going to be easy. This was on the road to going really bad, really quick.

I heard a startled shout of protest behind me when the gurney was finally wheeled into position in the treatment room, and looking up for a brief second I saw how the doors were shut close in front of the guy who had carried our patient into the ER. I normally don't allow myself to think about friends and family during emergency treatment, but when I saw him stare through the small glass panes in the door to the treatment room with wide eyes, I couldn't help but wonder what he was seeing now. To me, the procedures were well-known. Emotionally detached, all I saw was a patient, his condition, and how we were trying to save his life.

But he had to be seeing something else. A friend, or maybe a family member or someone else entirely, covered in blood, with doctors and nurses bustling about him in a seemingly random cadence. Blood everywhere. Too much blood.

But then the doors closed, blocking out the man and the outside world, and in fact everything that didn't have to do with the patient and the attempt to save his life. Everything, but the memory of the expression in the man's eyes. That gaze had touched something inside me, though at that point of time I was unable to name it, or even say what it was. Later. That had to wait till later.

Now all that counted was the patient.

It wasn't a bullet wound as I had initially suspected. Not a knife wound, either. In fact, it were three long, crooked gashes running over the man's stomach and side. They were deep, and the bleeding was so bad that I simply knew we weren't going to be able to treat him here. No, our job was to stabilize him while the operating room was prepared for emergency surgery.

He nearly didn't make it.

His blood pressure was already critically low from the blood loss, his pulse too fast and racing as his heart tried to compensate. It wasn't surprising at all that he crashed just a few moments after the gurney had come to a stand in the treatment room.

Crash cart.

Chest compressions.

Two bags of O negative by IV, as fast as possible.

Saline solution.

Paddles always at hand, should he go into arrhythmia. If his pulse came back, that is.

And for a few moments, I was convinced that it wasn't. I really thought that we were going to lose him right there and then, before he even saw the inside of the operating room.

Again, I was surprised.

"We got a pulse!"

Whoever the guy was, he definitely was a fighter.

Stabilized as far as he was ever going to be with the treatment we could provide, he was finally wheeled out of the treatment room, and up for surgery. I always tend to lose every feeling for time during emergency treatments. It doesn't matter how long it takes, just as long as they make it. To me, it seemed like mere minutes since the first call for help outside in the front room, but I knew it could easily have been half an hour or more. An endless stretch of time for the other man outside, waiting for news.

But however much time had passed, my shift was over. After cleanup in the treatment room, I stepped outside, tired, exhausted and in a strange state of upheaval that I hadn't experienced in a while. I only wanted to change into normal clothes and drive home, back to my family. But my way to the locker rooms led me past the waiting room, and that's where I saw him again.

Doctor Taylor walked past me in the other direction, and I knew that he had just delivered the news about the results of the emergency treatment.

Emergency surgery, unknown prognosis, more waiting. Not the kind of results anyone was ever hoping for.

I just wanted to walk past, to get home and forget about this day, but something about the man made me slow my steps. He was sitting in one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room, his frame folded into it in a way that had to be uncomfortable, staring ahead without seeing anything. There was still blood all over him, and I didn't know if it was his or the other guy's. In any case, he didn't seem quite there, at least not enough to decide to get himself checked out if he was hurt, too.

Maybe it would be better to take a look after him before I left.

As I got closer, I was surprised at how young he seemed. I hadn't noticed before, but then again things had been busy. I would put him somewhere in his mid-twenties, thought it was hard to tell. His face seemed mid-twenties, but his eyes were older. Much older, as if he had seen enough pain to last for two lifetimes or more. And despite all that, the way he was sitting in that uncomfortable chair, he seemed like a little boy who had gotten lost. Not like a grown man who had just carried a bleeding and unconscious person into an ER in search for help. No, he seemed every bit like the child that had gotten lost in the mall, and was now waiting for his parents to pick him up, worried and secretly scared that they would never come.

Approaching him I had the impression that he was somewhere else entirely, lost in his thoughts and the memories of what he had seen, but as I got within a few feet of him he suddenly looked up, and I realized that he had been aware of my presence the whole time. From one moment to the next, that lost boy expression vanished from his face. It was as if he put a well-practiced mask in place, one that was impenetrable. Had it not been for the blood all over him and the knowledge about what happened, I wouldn't have known what could possibly be going on inside his head.

He regarded me warily, and for some reason I felt compelled to make my appearance the least threatening as I crossed the final few steps over and sat down in a chair so that I was facing him, clearly out of his personal space. His eyes followed my every move, but he didn't say a word even as I sat down and leaned my elbows on my thighs.

"Did you get yourself checked out?"

The blank expression on his face changed into momentary confusion. "What?"

His voice was rough, though it probably didn't always sound like that. I gestured at the blood on his shirt, face and arms.

"You look as if maybe you should get yourself checked out, too."

He looked down at his hands, startled as if he noticed the blood for the first time. Long slender fingers started rubbing at the blood on his left hand, but the blood was dried and wouldn't come off that way. He stared at his hands for a moment, then he shook his head.

"No, I'm…it's okay. It's…not mine."

Not his meant all of the blood was the other man's, and that realization made the words die in his throat. I was still undecided whether or not he wasn't in shock, and people in shock normally weren't the best judges as to their own health, but for him the topic seemed to be closed after that self-assessment.

"I guess Doctor Taylor talked to you about the surgery?"

He nodded, wordlessly, and I fumbled to get to the point I was trying to make.

"Then I guess he told you that it's going to take a while. You should probably go get cleaned up, look after yourself…"

He shook his head even before I had finished speaking. "No, I'll wait."

"Listen…" I vaguely waved a hand in the air, and he caught my drift.

"Sam."

I nodded. "Okay Sam, I'm Ben. I'm a nurse here, and I can tell you from over twenty years of experience that there won't be any news in the next hour, probably for even longer than that. You have plenty of time to get cleaned up, change your clothes and come back here."

Another headshake, still as determined. "I can't…I have to stay here."

I was about to say something else, but suddenly his eyes turned away from me to look at something else. I followed his gaze and found Herb, our security guard, standing at the front desk, talking to the nurse on duty. They exchanged a few words, then the nurse pointed over into their direction. I felt Sam tense beside me without even having to look.

There was a story to the fact that he was so wired and tense in a situation like this, but I was distracted from thinking about it any further when Herb called out to me.

"Hey Ben! Tell him to put his car out of the tow-away zone, will ya?"

I nodded and with a smile at the nurse, Herb shuffled off to his small cubicle near the entrance. I turned back towards the guy beside me.

"You heard him. You parked in the tow-away zone. The space in front of the hospital is for ambulances only, they're going to tow you if you don't put away the car."

He nodded, but his eyes went over towards the elevator bank from which the surgeon would come with news about his brother. It was a layout familiar to many hospitals, with the operating rooms on a different floor than the ER, and I wondered how many hospitals the guy knew to be so familiar with that layout.

It was obvious that he was hesitant to leave, despite all reassurances that no news were going to be forthcoming anytime soon.

"I could drive the car into the parking lot for you…"

"No!" His answer was immediate and emphatic in its indignation, even though he seemed to sink in on himself immediately afterwards. "No, I'll do it myself. It's…the car isn't mine. My brother barely lets me drive it as it is."

So they were brothers.

I'm an only child myself, so I didn't understand it back then. I'm not sure I fully understand it now. I see it in my own children every day, but for some reason I'm not sure whether it's the same as between Sam and his brother. Somehow, after everything I've seen, I doubt that. But back then, I couldn't have known. Back then, the word 'brother' was a small piece of information, and I didn't think much of it.

"Parking lot is just around the south corner, you'll be back in less than five minutes. I'll let you know if there's any news."

There was still a hesitancy in him as he got up from the plastic chair, but the threat of the car being towed seemed to worry him genuinely.

"If…if anybody comes with news…"

I nodded. "I'll stick around here, tell them to wait if anybody shows up."

Though I knew nobody would. Not ten minutes after the begin of emergency surgery. Not even if Sam's brother hadn't survived his way up into the operating room. Things never moved that quickly here. But he finally straightened up and turned towards the front doors.

And that boy was tall. Sitting slumped in the chair as he had been earlier, I hadn't even noticed. I'm not small myself, but Sam easily towered at least half a head above me. Even with his hands stuffed into his pockets as he quickly hurried out of the hospital he looked like someone who would stand out in most crowds.

I got up from my chair and took a few steps after him as he left the hospital and headed straight towards a big black car that was parked there. In the earlier commotion, I hadn't even noticed it, but now it stood out so that I wondered how I could have missed it. I don't know much about cars, but my uncle had a thing for classic cars, restoring and driving them for a while before he sold them and took on the next project. For a year or two, he had been driving a moss green Chevy Impala, one that had looked nearly identical to the one parked outside the hospital. I didn't remember the year, some sixties model, but it was similar enough.

It was a beautiful car, the engine roaring as it came to life and Sam pulled it out of sight. But it was also a very unusual car for a young man to drive these days, in the age of SUVs and small sports cars. It wasn't the kind of car that was merely a vehicle. It was the kind of car owners got passionate about. No small wonder Sam had said his brother was reluctant to let anybody else drive it. My uncle's Chevy hadn't been a mode of transportation, it had been a temporary member of the family.

Sam wasn't gone for five minutes. It was closer to three, maybe even less, when he came back into the hospital, a small backpack clutched in his hand. Wide-eyed he came over towards me, but I shook my head at him before he even got into hearing distance. No news. Sam's shoulders sagged a little at that, but whether from relief or worry I couldn't tell.

As he stepped closer, he insecurely lifted the backpack.

"Is there a restroom around?"

I had to stop the smile from creeping onto my face. Probably Sam had gotten a good look at himself in the rear-view mirror as he had moved the car, and had seen the blood.

"Restrooms are over there." I nodded my head into the direction of the restroom doors. When he leveled another insecure gaze at me, I gave him a small smile. "I'll stick around until you're done."

"Thanks."

It was just a small word, one syllable really, and one that I heard often enough from distraught family members. Mostly in passing, when they were already on their way to their loved one's room and their mind was on other matters entirely. But there was a sincerity in the way Sam said it that I hadn't heard often before. The sincerity of someone who wasn't used to saying it, wasn't used to saying it because people didn't often give him reason to say it. The sincere thanks of someone who wasn't used to other people doing something for him.

Backpack clutched in his hand, Sam hurried into the restroom and out of sight. I turned towards the nurse's station at the front desk. Maybe there was some new information on Sam's brother that Lucy, the desk nurse this shift, would be able to share.

But I didn't get lucky. No news from the operating room, but the brother's admittance forms were still lying on Lucy's desk. While Sam was busy cleaning up in the bathroom, I chanced a look at them.

Dean Burkovitz. So the elusive brother finally had a name. 29 years old. Judged by my earlier assessment of Sam's age, I guessed that Dean was the older brother then. I hadn't really been able to get a good look at him earlier, there had been more important things to focus on than his face. The rest of the information that Sam had filled out was generic. According to this, the brothers, or at least Dean, originated from Maryland. Previous medical history listed an appendix surgery fifteen years back, another abdominal surgery that wasn't closer defined, five years back, and nothing else. I put the admittance form back down and asked Lucy to keep me updated should she hear anything from the operating rooms upstairs.

Then I got two cups of coffee from the nurse's private stash and carried them over into the waiting room. I had barely sat down and put the cups down on an empty chair when Sam came hurrying back into the waiting room. He was wearing a different pair of jeans, and a clean flannel shirt, and his face and hands were scrubbed clean of the blood. I knew that there was only cold water in the ER restrooms, but Sam didn't look as if he had noticed, or as if it had bothered him. He sank down in his previously vacated chair and eyed me with a mixture of gratitude and mistrust.

"Thanks. Thanks for staying around."

"No problem."

Sam placed the backpack under his chair, and judged by its filled looks he had stuffed his bloody clothes back into it. For a moment I wondered about it, wondered why he was keeping clothes that were saturated with his brother's blood when most others would have gladly thrown them away, never to look at them again. It was another mystery to add to the list.

"I got you a coffee." I said lamely, and gestured towards the cup on the seat beside him. He looked at it as if I was offering him a poisoned apple, then frowned at me.

"Why? I mean…thanks. I just don't…you needn't have done that."

I shrugged. "There was a fresh pot in the nurse's room, and you looked as if you needed one. I wouldn't advise drinking the sludge from the machine down the hall, not unless you want to book into a room here yourself."

I winced as the words had left my mouth, but Sam took them in stride, without flinching or any other reaction that would have led me to believe he had taken my words the wrong way. He reached for one of the mugs and wrapped his hands around it.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. And I checked with the front desk, there's no news on Dean yet. As I said, it might take a while."

Sam's head snapped up at the mention of his brother's name, and suddenly there was something different in his eyes, something fierce, and threatening. "How do you know his name?"

His tone was sharp, instantly suspicious, and he was clutching the mug in his hands as if ready to throw it at me, or scald me with the hot liquid should I give the wrong answer. It was astonishing how quickly the young man's demeanor had changed within the fragment of a moment, and more than just a little disconcerting. He might be extremely tall, but up until that moment Sam had looked lost above anything else. Definitely not threatening, but that had changed within a heartbeat. Sine I had mentioned his brother's name, he was suddenly radiating an underlying danger, and his posture promised that the feeling of threat that Sam was emanating wasn't empty. I raised my free hand, the one not holding my own mug, in a placating manner.

"I took a look at his admittance form while you were in the bathroom. I'm sorry, but I have to admit that I was curious."

Sam's posture relaxed a little at that, and he took a small sip of the coffee. We both drank in silence for a few minutes, a silence that was hanging heavily and in no way relaxed. Whatever friendliness I might have bought myself by sticking around while he parked the car, I seemed to have lost by my uninvited prying. I know a defensive position when I see one, and the way Sam was sitting in his chair, drawn up and turned slightly away from me, this was defensive if I had ever seen it.

Sam kept on throwing glances at the elevator doors, and I found myself watching him whenever I was sure he wasn't looking my way. If Dean was 29, Sam definitely was the younger brother. Mid-twenties probably, maybe two or three years younger than his brother. And for as long as there was no conversation, no words that he had to react to, his face was an impenetrable mask. There was worry there, obviously, and anxiety. But it wasn't overwhelming, it was lurking in the background as he struggled to keep his face blank. However, his eyes were telling a different story entirely. The expression in his eyes was anything but blank, or neutral. It were raw emotions reflecting in them, and no amount of struggling was going to make him able to hide those. The worry and fear in those eyes made me look away from the sheer intensity of it.

"So, what happened?"

Sam seemed to have been content in the silence. Probably he was wondering what I was even doing there, much less why I was talking to him. But despite his earlier defensiveness at my reading Dean's admission forms, my gift of freshly brewed coffee seemed to have bought me one question at least. He took another sip and leaned back slightly in his chair.

"We were hunting. I don't really know what happened. Something attacked him. A bear, or probably a wild dog. We had split up. I only heard him scream, and when I found him whatever attacked him was gone."

I nodded, even though I didn't believe a word he was saying. The story had more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

It was early hunting season for deer in these parts, that was about the only thing that really worked out.

Sam had been wearing jeans and a flannel shirt earlier, and we had cut similar clothing off of Dean in the treatment room. That wasn't the kind of clothes you wore for hunting. And that aside, despite it being the season, deer hunting had been discouraged over the past weeks. There had been one too many inexplicable deaths and disappearances that led the local sheriffs believe that there was some predator in these woods that wasn't normally found in the area. Now that Sam mentioned bears, that might be an explanation. Though I had never heard of a bear attacking a number of people in such a short span of time before.

So whatever Sam and his brother had been doing in the woods, I was sure it hadn't been hunting. Not that it mattered right now. Especially not to Sam. Whatever was going on in his head, right now it was focused only on this hospital, and on what was happening with his brother two floors above our heads.

"So you carried him out of the woods to your car? Your brother doesn't look particularly light to me."

Sam only shrugged. "I guess so. I…I had to get him to the hospital, didn't I? The car wasn't too far."

He drained the last of his coffee and put the cup down on the empty seat beside him. Worrying his lower lip with his teeth for a moment, he finally looked up at me.

"Why are you doing this? I mean, I already told the doctor everything that happened earlier. Since when do hospitals give the personal treatment?"

There was much more meaning in that question. It spoke of an intimate knowledge of hospitals that I had already deducted from Sam's glances at the elevator, guessing correctly where the doctor would appear with the verdict about his brother's condition. Somehow I got the feeling that he was no stranger at all to hospital waiting rooms, waiting for news on his brother. Only that he seemed to be used to waiting alone, and to the anonymity of ER waiting rooms where nobody ever attempted to establish personal contact.

I knew the kind of people who ended up in the ER regularly, the drunks, the addicts, the gang members, and all the others. But somehow, I had difficulties fitting Sam in any of the categories my brain could come up with. It made me even more curious about the story of these two young men. It seemed with everything Sam said, new questions started to form in my mind.

But Sam only cared about one question, and that was the one he had just asked me. And as he looked at me over the rim of his coffee cup, I felt compelled to answer. I couldn't explain why, but there was something in that gaze that Sam leveled at me. Something similar to what I had felt before at his heartfelt thank you. There was a genuine curiosity in both, the question and his expression. Curiosity and the inability to comprehend why somebody would offer to help him, unasked. That, and a certain degree of wariness as to what would be asked in return for the courtesy.

Probably it was the latter that made me search frantically for a good explanation, because I didn't want to give him the feeling that the little support I had provided, or rather forced upon him, was going to come at a price.

"I don't know." I shrugged. "I saw Doctor Taylor come from delivering the news, and I know how confusing and upsetting all that medical babble can be." I shrugged again, unable to put my reasons into words, even in my head. "You looked kinda lost, and with all that blood over you I thought I'd make sure that you weren't hurt, too."

Sam nodded, accepting my stumbling explanation for the moment. "So now that you know I'm not hurt, aren't you going to be missed somewhere?"

It wasn't said in a way that delivered the message for me to leave. It was a neutral inquiry, the question whether I shouldn't have anything better to do than sit here with him and wait for news on his brother. I smiled. "My shift ended a few minutes after you and your brother arrived here."

Much to my surprise, a small smile spread on his face at that. "Well, I guess Dean's lucky then that you didn't insist on clocking out on time."

I didn't know if I had heard right at first, but then allowed myself to chuckle. People had a lot of different coping mechanisms. Humor wasn't unheard of, even if it was rare.

"Oh, I'll write down every minute of overtime, rest assured. Maybe we can talk a little about the deeper meaning of things, then I can apply for a bonus for psychological consult."

Sam smiled for a little longer, but then his thoughts seemed to drift down a darker road again and the outward sign of momentary reprieve vanished.

"So, you were there when…before they brought Dean up to surgery?"

I nodded. "Yes, I was."

A slight hesitation, and he nervously played around with his nearly mug of coffee. His inner battle lasted only a few seconds, then he drew a breath of resolve and looked up again.

"The doctor who came by earlier, he said that Dean's heart stopped while you were treating him."

Sam might have put his mask back in place, but the lost little boy was still there, lurking underneath the surface and putting a slight quiver in his voice. It was astonishing how quickly Sam's appearance shifted. One moment he projected all the mysteries of a man hardened beyond his years, one who gave off the feeling that he had more than a few stories to tell. And within the fragment of a second he suddenly seemed like that lost little boy again who was desperately hoping for a loved one to pick him up.

And I could imagine that what had happened earlier hadn't made things easier. Doctor Taylor was a very talented ER doc, but he wasn't known for his bedside manner. His shift had ended at the same time that mine had, so he had probably given Sam the shortest possible rundown on his brother's injuries, just to get out of the hospital. I didn't really begrudge him, as an ER doctor he was running a lot of overtime hours as it was, but in my eyes that didn't justify giving family members the harsh treatment.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair and looked at Sam, surprised to find that he was meeting my gaze straight on, not looking away in fear of what I was about to tell him. Definitely not the kind of reaction I often witnessed in family members who were searching for reassuring words, but who were secretly fearing bad news. I took a deep breath and chose my words very carefully.

"What happened is that your brother lost a lot of blood. His blood pressure went down, and as a result his heart started beating faster in order to compensate for the lack of blood. The problem is that if there isn't enough blood to keep the body working, the heart just keeps beating faster and faster. That's what happened to Dean, and after a while his heart gave out from the strain. I won't lie to you, he was lucky that he was in the ER when it happened, but we immediately gave him transfusions and saline solution to stabilize the blood pressure, and his heart started beating on its own again after just a short while of chest compressions. It's never a good thing if the heart stops beating, of course. But we've had him stabilized by the time he was taken up for surgery. He'll probably run through a few more units of blood, but if the surgeons manage to get the bleeding under control quickly, I think he can make it."

Sam looked at me for a long moment, then he shook his head. "You know, the doctor earlier sounded a lot less optimistic about things."

I smiled. "And after all he is the one with the MD after his name."

Sam's eyes widened a little. "I didn't mean to say that you have no clue. I know that most nurses know just as much as doctors do."

I didn't take offence. I was used to people thinking that the MD behind your name automatically meant that you had to know more about things than a simple nurse. I hadn't gone to university and med-school, but I had enough experience under my belt to make more than just educated guesses about a patient's condition.

But what surprised me was that Sam knew that, as well. Once more, it spoke of an experience with hospitals, doctors and nurses that went beyond what an ordinary person went through in their life, and it made me even more curious. I had never been this intrigued by a patient's history before, but the more I talked to Sam, the more interested I became in those two brothers.

But again, that would have to wait until later. For now, I had a young man sitting next to me who was obviously scared half to death, no matter how much he tried to hide it. And that was something I could maybe make at least a little better.

"As far as the medical assessment goes, Doctor Taylor might be able to give you the more detailed rundown of your brother's injuries, yeah. But nurses have one advantage over doctors, and that's that we don't only look at the injuries. We also look at the patients. I've seen a lot patients over the years, and I think I can tell very well when a patient is hanging on and when not. And I got the impression that your brother is a fighter."

Sam actually laughed at that. "Yeah, that he is. Dean doesn't know how to quit."

I didn't say it out loud, because it would have sounded like a platitude and Sam didn't strike me as the kind of guy to swallow those. But that was actually a very good thing. Medically, Dean was being taken care of. I didn't know who was on duty, but we have some very good surgeons on staff. And while that was important, it was only one part of it. Another part, a very important one, was that the patient was hanging on. It might not be much, but sometimes it was enough to tip the scales.

Silence settled over the waiting room after that. There wasn't much to say, nothing except more platitudes that I liked saying just as little as Sam would like hearing them. Now all that was left to do was wait, and that was something nobody could take away from Sam. He was the one who had to do that, and I had done all that I could.

After a few more silent minutes, I picked up my empty coffee mug and got up from my chair. The muscles in my back protested against the movement, and I didn't want to imagine what somebody had to feel like after spending a couple of hours sitting in one of those. Sam looked up at me, but the mask was firmly back in place and I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"I should be heading home. They will let you know about Dean as soon as the surgery is over."

Sam just nodded. "I know."

Another small sentence that gave away more than Sam had probably wanted to. I gave him a small smile and started walking away when his voice called me back.

"Ben!"

I turned around and raised my eyebrows. Sam looked uncomfortable, and shifted around a little on his chair.

"Thanks. You know, for the coffee, and for sticking around."

The words tumbled out, unused and yet more sincere than I had heard them in a long time. I smiled again.

"You're welcome. It will be a while, maybe you should try to get some rest."

Sam only shook his head. "I couldn't sleep now. I'll just wait."

There was a huge difference between rest and sleep, but I bit my tongue and didn't even try to go into that discussion. Sam probably wasn't going to listen, anyway.

"I hope Dean comes out of this all right."

Sam nodded, eyes cast to the floor. "Yeah, me too. He has to."

I turned around and continued my way to the door, heart aching for the lost little boy that had emerged again in Sam during those last seconds. Had it not been the dead of the night and the waiting room empty except for Sam and me, I would have missed his last words. They weren't even directed at me, but in the stillness of the room there was no way for me not to hear them.

"He's all I have."

Definitely not directed at me, those words had sounded more like a prayer, something that had slipped out of Sam's mouth because he couldn't keep it inside and leave it unspoken for any longer. Sam certainly hadn't meant to bear his soul to me, but those few words had been more than enough to do the job. The shiver that ran through me at that moment had nothing to do with the draft of air coming in through the opening door.

On my way out of the hospital, I made another stop with Lucy, the nurse on desk duty for this night. I put my empty coffee mug in the sink in the small office behind her desk, grabbed my jacket and got ready to leave. Lucy looked up when I walked past her.

"Clocking out?"

I nodded. "Been off for an hour already."

Lucy smiled a sympathetic smile. "Go home and get some sleep, Ben."

"I'm just about to. But can you do me a favor?"

Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Sure. What is it?"

I nodded towards the waiting room, where Sam had slumped in on himself again, staring at the elevator at the far end of the room as if he'd be able to make his brother's doctor emerge by sheer force of will.

"Could you keep an eye out on Sam there? He's waiting for news on his brother, and…well, you saw how they arrived earlier."

Lucy nodded, a smile playing around her lips. "And by keeping an eye out you mean making sure to give him some of the good coffee instead of the sludge from the machine?"

That brought a smile to my face. "The next package of coffee is on me. And yeah amongst other things I meant that. But seriously, I'm not entirely sure that the surgery is going to go well, and I get the feeling he won't react good to hearing bad news."

"Okay. I'll do what I can."

And we both knew that she would, but in all honesty there wasn't much a nurse, or anyone for that matter, could do if the news about the outcome of the surgery were bad news. Just like the wait, that would be something Sam had to go through on his own. And wasn't that exactly why I had chosen to work in the ER instead of some other part of the hospital? Because I didn't want to have to worry about that kind of thing, at least not beyond the treatment I was involved in, and definitely not beyond the end of my shift.

For now, I had a family of my own to return to.

I really thought I had seen it all after so many years on the job. And I told myself that it hadn't been any different tonight. Their arrival in the ER might have been unusual, but when it came down to it Dean was just another patient whom life had dealt some bad luck, and Sam was nothing but another family member lost between hope and fear as he waited for how his life was going to continue. Nothing I hadn't seen before, even if the intensity of Sam's reactions had struck a chord in me.

I drove home and did what I always did after work. I tried to shake off the day before I opened the door to my home. I kissed my wife, I looked in on my children in their beds, tucking in dislodged blankets and brushing a kiss on each sleep-tousled head, and went to bed, thoroughly exhausted from a long day at work.

And for the next two hours, I tossed and turned, chasing elusive sleep even though my body was more than ready for it. But my mind just couldn't let go of the question what it had to feel like to have nobody but one person left in the world, and what it had to feel like if that person was slipping away.

* * *

Thanks for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	2. I could only begin to understand

Here is the next chapter. I know it was a bit vague that there was going to be a second chapter after how the first one ended, but there was always supposed to be. Ben hasn't figured our brothers out yet, after all.

Sorry that it took me a while to get this out, the conversation at the end of the chapter didn't really come out the way I wanted to at first.

Enjoy!

* * *

**I could only begin to understand**

An upcoming family visit had forced me to switch a couple of shifts to get off on the days that I needed, so the next morning found me returning to the hospital for the early shift. As usual, I arrived with about half an hour to spare, time that I always used to drink another coffee and catch up on the events of the past night before I officially started my shift.

Of course I hadn't forgotten about the previous night, and admittedly I was curious to the outcome of Dean's surgery. What I hadn't expected, however, was to find Sam still sitting in the ER waiting room, his lanky frame folded uncomfortably into the chair, arms crossed in front of his chest, staring ahead without looking at anything in particular. He looked thoroughly exhausted, which was not surprising after a night spent in the ER waiting room, but I was surprised all the same to still find him here. Dean's injuries had been bad, but his surgery should have been long over by now, one way or another.

I dropped my stuff in my locker and went over to seek out Lucy at her desk. She was the best source for news, and I wanted to catch her before her shift ended. She greeted me with a tired smile just as I had filled a cup with coffee.

"Morning Ben."

"Morning. Quiet night?"

Lucy shrugged. "More or less. Nothing big happened, at the very least."

"Why is Sam still sitting in the waiting room? Shouldn't his brother be out of surgery by now?"

Lucy nodded. "He is. Which I'm thankful for, because after three hours I was sure that Sam there was going to go up the walls. He might have looked like a lost puppy by the time you left, but I swear a caged tiger has nothing on the guy. The way he was pacing up and down, I thought he was going to wear a groove into the floor."

"So what about his brother?"

Lucy shrugged. "He's in ICU. They let Sam see him for a few minutes after the surgery, but you know ICU visiting hours. The kid came back here after that, to wait until they let him see his brother again."

I shook my head. ICU visiting hours didn't start for another four hours. I didn't doubt for one moment that Sam had been up the entire night, and even from my position a couple of yards away it took only one look to see that he radiated exhaustion. I took a sip of my coffee, then put the mug down on Lucy's desk and headed over towards where Sam was sitting.

Like the previous evening, the young man seemed lost in his thoughts, but from the way his eyes unerringly turned towards me the moment I got within a certain distance of him I knew he had been aware of my presence all the time. It took a second, then recognition showed on his face and he seemed to relax somewhat.

"Ben."

"Morning Sam."

I sat down in one of the free chairs, the same on I had been sitting in the previous night. The only difference was that the waiting room was slowly filling up. A few people were already milling around, waiting for treatment, but the chairs around Sam's had remained empty so far.

"I heard Dean is out of surgery."

Sam nodded, wearily running a hand over his face. "Yeah. He's…they let me see him earlier."

And it didn't need all of my twenty years of experience to guess that the visit had been anything but reassuring. Directly after surgery, everybody seemed fragile and more seriously hurt than they were, even those who had merely been through a minor routine procedures. With such severe injuries and a blood loss as high as Dean's had been, seeing him directly after the surgery wouldn't have been a reassuring sight. It was no small wonder Sam had decided to stick around. Nevertheless, I knew how deceiving that impression could be, and felt compelled to say something.

"Nobody looks peachy right after surgery."

Sam only nodded wearily. "I know. That's why I'm waiting."

Again, just a few words that spoke of more experience with hospitals and emergency treatments than most people accumulate over the course of a lifetime. I fleetingly wondered how often Sam had been in the situation to see a loved one directly after a surgery to know that their condition then was nothing to judge their chances for recovery by. Dean's admittance forms had listed some previous surgeries, but nothing that would have seemed above normal.

But for now, the most pressing matter was that this young man right next to me was probably going to drop from exhaustion before ICU visiting hours even started. There was no way he was going to sit out the wait until then.

"You want to wait until ICU visiting hours? Sam, that's still more than four hours away. You've been up all night, and no offence, but you look as if you could do with some rest."

A shake of Sam's head was all the answer I got. "No, I'll wait. I need to see Dean."

And there was a finality to his words that said clearly he wasn't going to be swayed from this decision, no matter if that meant he was going to drop from exhaustion in the process. I didn't know if I should shake my head at the stupidity, or stand in awe at the degree of devotion Sam was showing with such few words. In the end, the thing that my wife calls my meditative streak won out. Sam obviously needed rest, and he wouldn't get any before he had seen his brother. So the only possible choice was to make sure that he got to see his brother now, without having to wait for ICU visiting hours to start.

"I'll make you a deal."

Sam's head perked up slightly, but he seemed too weary and exhausted to show much of a reaction besides that.

"What deal?"

"I'll go upstairs and see if I can't convince them to let you into ICU outside of visiting hours."

Sam didn't say anything, he merely raised his eyebrow as if waiting for the price tag that came attached with the favor. Again, this immediate reaction of suspicion startled me and made me ask myself once more what this young man's story was.

"And what is the other part of this deal?"

There was clear mistrust and suspicion in his voice, so I did my best to shrug lightly.

"That you go and get some rest after you've seen your brother. There's visiting hours in the afternoon, in between now and then you can get some solid hours of sleep, and honestly you look as if you need them."

Sam's eyes narrowed as he contemplated my offer. I hadn't expected him to immediately latch on the idea, but I also hadn't thought that he was going to be this suspicious and hesitant in accepting what I had to offer. But his desire to see his brother seemed strong enough to drown out all worries about my intentions.

"You could get them to let me into ICU?"

I shrugged. I didn't know who was on duty, but I knew pretty much everybody here in the hospital, and didn't see why anybody would be unwilling to bend the rules a little to do me a small favor.

"I think so."

"And why would you do that? Why do you care if they let me see my brother now or later?"

I didn't get him.

Normally, I have a pretty good grasp on people, but this young man completely eluded me. Sam wanted to see his brother, I offered him a chance at seeing him right now rather than later, and instead of grasping at that without much thought he questioned my motives. Which I didn't mind, since I thought that I had nothing to hide, but it wasn't the kind of reaction I'd have ever expected.

As an answer to his question, I merely shrugged.

"If you drop from exhaustion in my ER, it's going to fall back on me. Besides, _I'm_ tired, and I got a solid six hours of sleep since last night. You've been awake for the entire time, and I don't think you're going to do your brother much of a favor if you're going to test the limits of how much exhaustion a single person can take."

It didn't answer the question why I should care about whether or not he got to saw his brother, but in all honesty I didn't know if I could answer that. I didn't quite know myself. Sam contemplated my words for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. Eventually, he nodded.

"Okay. If you can get me up to see Dean now, you got a deal."

And that was all that I had asked for. I could make no guarantees, but at least it was something that might get Sam a little chance to rest, sooner than anticipated. I gestured for him to follow me, and together we got into the elevator and rode up three floors until we had reached ICU.

It turned out that the nurse in charge of the ICU during the morning shift was Carol, and it was a lot easier than expected to get Sam a few minutes with his brother. Carol was strict in handling her station, but deep down she was a sweetheart who cared a lot about her patients. Sam's story would have been enough to sway her, and when I told her about the deal I had made with the exhausted young man she caved and beckoned him to follow her.

I noticed, with some amused surprise, that the expression befitting a lost puppy had appeared again on Sam's face the moment we entered the ICU. And I was sure that this time it had been a deliberate act. I didn't think he was the kind of guy to use somebody else's sympathy for his own ends, not with his brother's life in the balance. But I also had the distinct impression that this boy would stop short of nothing if it was about his brother. And if that implied appealing to the soft heart of an ICU nurse, then it was definitely not something he shied away from.

There were no rooms in the ICU, only separate cubicles that were curtained off from each other. I watched as Carol led Sam over towards where his brother was lying. I wasn't close enough to make out the details, but still close enough to get a general idea of Dean's condition. He wasn't on a respirator, and that was a good thing, but all his vital functions were closely monitored, and a canula through his nose was supplying him with additional oxygen. Even more canulas and IVs vanished under the thin sheet covering him, monitoring his condition, administering medication, draining his wounds of fluids. It was normal after a surgery like the one Dean had just been through. But to someone who didn't have dealings with this on an everyday basis, all the monitors, IVs, tubes and wires had to seem pretty scary.

Yet Sam surprised me once again.

He wordlessly stepped up to the bed and didn't so much as spare a glance to the equipment his brother was hooked up to. He had his eyes trained on his brother's face, as if searching for a minute reaction that would tell him Dean was aware of his presence.

I had seen a lot of different reactions over the years. Tears, disbelief, denial, breakdowns – you name it and I'm sure I've seen the reaction in a family member of one of my patients. But Sam didn't show any of the reactions I might have predicted, or even expected. He just silently looked down at his brother's prone form, his hands hovering nervously over Dean's right arm. It almost seemed as if he was unsure whether to touch him or not, and one moment he seemed to reach for Dean's hand, only to shy back before establishing physical contact.

They might be brothers, but I got the distinct impression that they weren't touchers. Or maybe Dean wasn't a toucher, and Sam was unsure of how far he could go while his brother was unconscious. I don't know why that small observation fascinated me so much, but I had imagined it to be different. Of course I didn't know much about those two men, but judged by Sam's state of mind, I had gotten the impression that those two were close. All the family they had left, after all. But then again that didn't have to mean anything. Close didn't have to mean physically close.

After a few seconds of inner debate, Sam settled one hand on his brother's forearm.

It happened instantly, and so subtle that it was hard to notice, but the tension seemed to leave Sam's frame at that moment. There was no sagging of his shoulders, no big sigh of relief. In fact, I can't say for sure if I could have named it then, or if I could put a name to it even now. But it was obvious even from a distance that the small movement of establishing contact, the reassurance that his brother's skin was still warm, that he was breathing and that his heart was beating steadily, was the equivalent of a huge weight being lifted off of Sam's shoulders. And it showed in minute changes in his posture, all too small to notice them separately, but monumentally obvious when counted together.

"It's the talk of the hospital."

I started a little at Carol's voice. I had been so intent on watching Sam that I hadn't even noticed her return to where I was standing. My confusion must have shown on my face, because Carol smiled and nodded her head towards where Sam was standing beside his brother's bed.

"Those two, I mean. I heard their arrival here last night caused quite a stir."

Aside from being a warmhearted person with a strict sense of order, Carol also was the best source for talk and gossip around the hospital. It shouldn't surprise me that the news of just how Sam and his brother had come barging into the ER the previous night had already reached her. But somehow, I didn't feel like sharing any of what I had experienced the last night and this morning with her. I didn't know why. I have to admit that I'm not above the occasional gossip chat, and if there is one thing that's always going around plenty in a hospital aside from sickness and death, then it's gossip.

But for some reason, the things that had happened since Sam had arrived in the ER last night, clutching his brother's bloody body in his arms, were not something I wanted to talk about. Sam gave me the impression of being a young man who hid a lot of things behind his façade. And that he had dropped that mask for a few short moments in my presence wasn't something that had to do with trust in me. It hadn't even been a deliberate act, so somehow sharing the few insights I had gained about him and his brother seemed wrong.

It wasn't my story to tell, especially since I knew neither the beginning nor what it was really about. So instead of giving Carol a verbal answer, I merely shrugged. But she didn't seem to take that as discouragement to continue the conversation.

"Parker is all over this. Earlier when I started my shift, he was reading Mr. Burkovitz' file as if it was the latest edition of _Playboy_."

Gerald Parker was the Chief Pathologist at the hospital, the one person nobody wanted to have salivating over their medical records. Why he had even been looking at the records of somebody who was still very much alive was a mystery to me.

"Why would he do that?"

Carol shrugged. "Somebody told him how similar Mr. Burkovitz' injuries are to those on some of the bodies he has been dealing with lately. You know, the missing hikers, the hunters? At least those that showed up again."

I nodded. "Yeah, I heard about those."

It was hard not to have heard about them. Those disappearances and deaths were one of the reasons why I hadn't believed Sam's story about his brother getting injured on a deer hunt for a minute. Hunting wasn't something people did voluntarily at the moment, not when so many people went missing, and only a few of them ever showed up again, mangled and dead.

"Parker is convinced that it's the same thing that injured Mr. Burkovitz. I mean, the bodies that were found were ripped apart, so that thing barely grazed him compared to what happened to the others. Seems like we have the first survivor, maybe he can finally tell the sheriff what is going on in those woods."

"His brother said he was injured by an animal. But he didn't know what animal it was."

Carol raised her eyebrows at me. "I've never seen any animal that leaves claw wounds like those. I mean, the thing must have been huge. A bear maybe, but who ever heard of a bear in these parts, especially one that keeps attacking people like that?"

I had no answer to that question, but the distinct feeling in my gut that Sam, and probably also Dean, knew exactly what kind of animal it had been. So maybe once the older brother woke up we'd get our answers.

Carol granted Sam nearly fifteen minutes with his brother before the strict ICU nurse inside of her won over and she asked us to leave. Sam did so, without a word of protest, and before leaving he thanked her politely for making an exception to let him see his brother. Carol was quite obviously flattered by his well manners and easy compliance, and I had the sneaky suspicion that Sam had just played her, and played her well at that. Not that he had any immediate gain from making a good impression on her. But the general thought of being on the good side of the nurse responsible for visiting hours to his brother struck me as part of the plan.

Not a malicious plan by a long shot, and Sam's smile at Carol seemed genuine enough. I just wasn't sure that with his brother in the state he was in, Sam would have bothered for this kind of behavior if he wasn't aware that it might grant him other out of the line visits in the future.

People hardly ever thought about what ifs, especially if it weren't grave decisions they were about to make. Yet Sam seemed to be constantly weighing his options, making note of things and filing them away for future reference. And once more I found myself wondering what kind of lifestyle these two young men were leading that forced them to behave like Sam did.

I have thought about it many times since I met Sam and Dean, and even after long deliberation I'm not sure I will ever be able to fully grasp it.

As we left the ICU and the doors closed behind us, I turned towards Sam.

"Now it's your turn to make good on your part of the deal."

He smiled tiredly at me. "I'm good to my word."

"You'd better be. Then I won't have to tell Herb to keep you out of the hospital."

It had been said with levity, but Sam's reaction couldn't have been much different if I had just shoved a knife into his side. Sam had shown humor before where I hadn't expected him to, and I think in this case it wasn't the playful tone that threw him off in the face of what his brother was going through. He had been antsy around Herb our security guard the previous night as well, I remembered. But whether it was the mention of Herb's name, or the implied message that I could keep him from his brother's side if I set my mind to it, something in my words had shaken Sam deeply.

Before I could even think of anything to say to make good on that, however, he forced himself to smile and turned towards the elevators.

"Well, then I'd better be going. Thank you Ben. I really appreciate this."

I only nodded wordlessly, unable to think of anything to say. I hadn't gone out of my way. Not at all. I hadn't even had to call in a favor to make this visit possible. I had simply done something I didn't have to do, but something well within my capability, to try and make things a little easier for this young man. And somehow, the feeling that Sam hadn't experienced that from many people before grew even stronger.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Visitors were allowed in the ICU from 10:00-11:00 am, and again from 2:00-3:00 pm. Over the next days, Sam didn't miss a single of those opportunities to go and see his brother. Mostly he showed up at the hospital well before visiting hours began and stayed for hours after his visits.

I didn't see him that often during the next days since his daily visits revolved around the ICU and not the ER. But whenever I arrived for my shifts, I saw the classic Chevy in the parking lot. When I went to the cafeteria for my lunch breaks, I found him there, brooding over a cup of coffee or staring at the clock on the wall as if willing its arms to move faster. Occasionally he came through the ER on his way in or out of the hospital. He always acknowledged me with a nod of his head or a word of greeting. He never stopped for more than that, though, and I had no idea where he went to during those few hours at night when he left the hospital. I knew that he had left a cell phone number so that his brother's doctors could reach him in case of an emergency, but nobody seemed to know anything beyond that.

But I noticed things.

Those few instances that I saw Sam around the hospital, mostly when an errand took me up to the ICU and I saw Sam visiting his brother, or sitting outside waiting for visiting hours to begin, he always seemed aware of my presence. No matter how deeply lost in thought he seemed, I got the impression that a part of his mind was always tuned in on his surroundings, watching, noticing, assessing. As if he was expecting a threat lurking behind every corner.

Also, he never turned his back on anybody. Sitting in one of the waiting rooms, he always picked a chair with its back against the wall. In the cafeteria, I only ever saw him seated at a corner table from where he could overlook the whole room. Even when he visited Dean in ICU Sam never stood with his back towards the nurse's station. Instead he always stood on the other side of his brother's bed, so that his back was against the wall and he could immediately see anybody who approached Dean's bed.

It was puzzling.

Sam seemed focused entirely on his brother's condition, but there was something else to him. It took me a while to put it into words, but today I would say that he seemed jumpy. Not in the sense that he was nervous, but that he was always tense, always anticipating somebody to make a move on him or his brother.

And it took me a while to realize that he was keeping watch. But once I realized that behavior for what it was, I asked myself how I could have missed it. Sam was keeping watch over his brother, beside his bed or outside the door, for as long as he could. Every single day. And I didn't have the slightest doubt that he was ready and willing to strike the moment he thought somebody was a threat.

Only, who he was keeping an eye out for, who or what he was trying to protect his brother from in a hospital eluded me, no matter how much I thought about it.

I don't think anybody else consciously noticed this, even though Sam was watched curiously by many eyes, but I'm convinced it was the reason why people steered clear of him in favor of watching him from a distance.

Over the next two days, Sam became a shadow looming the halls of the hospital. He knew about visiting hours, and everybody knew that he knew, but still he stayed around well beyond them. I had the impression that he was dragging out his stays in the hospital not only because Carol had developed a soft spot for him and occasionally granted him another few minutes with his brother outside of visiting hours. Rather, I thought it was because he wanted to be there if something changed about his brother's condition. No mater if things took a turn for the worse or if Dean woke up, Sam didn't want to be called. He wanted to be _there_.

And I'm not sure, but I have the feeling that on some level, Dean knew that. At that point of time I didn't know, but afterwards, having seen those two together, I'm fairly sure of it. And maybe I'm reading too much into it all, but I'm convinced it wasn't coincidence that when Dean finally woke up, it wasn't during the night when his brother was not at the hospital, but during the day, when Sam was close by.

I was just returning from my lunch break that day when I met Carol in the corridor that led to the cafeteria. The ICU nurse gestured for me to come over as soon as she spotted me, and started speaking even before I had reached her.

"Mr. Burkovitz woke up."

I always felt relief when a patient was on the mend, but not to the degree that I was feeling at that moment. And I couldn't explain it beyond the fact that I liked Sam, and I didn't think anybody should ever lose the last family they had left. Why Carol was so excited about telling me about this was another question entirely. But she just smiled knowingly.

"Oh come on, don't pretend you weren't the least bit curious Ben. For not getting attached to patients, you sure hung around the ICU a lot over the past days."

I merely shrugged, not willing to admit that Carol was right with what she was saying.

"I'm just glad for Sam, he seemed to be extremely worried."

"Not only him."

That remark took me a bit aback. "What do you mean?"

Carol shook her head.

"I was jut checking in on Mr. Burkovitz when he woke up. And you'd think that upon waking up in a hospital with a stranger leaning over you, his first thoughts would be where he was, or what had happened him. But that guy? _Sammy_, that's the first thing he says. _Where's_ _Sammy_? And I tell you Ben, he looked ready and willing to climb out of bed and look for his brother himself if I didn't do it. If you think the younger one has his gloomy moments, you can bet he took a leaf out of his brother's book for that. He looked at me as if he thought I had locked his brother up somewhere."

She shook her head and looked at her watch. "Anyway, I don't have long, I have to get something to eat before my break's over."

Having said that, she hurried down the corridor and into the cafeteria without another word. I looked after her for a few seconds, then I turned around and walked into the other direction with the full intention to go back to work. And normally, the way back from the cafeteria to the ER didn't lead through the ICU, but nevertheless I found myself riding up in the elevator not much later. And yes, the only explanation was that I was curious. I couldn't deny it. What was driving me towards the ICU now was pure and simple curiosity.

There was just something about Sam. I had the feeling that despite having seen him in emotional upheaval, I hadn't yet figured him out. And I had the distinct feeling that I had only seen half of it by now, anyway. The brother was a big part in the puzzle that was Sam Burkovitz, and I simply couldn't contain my curiosity for any longer.

The ICU was empty except for the second nurse on duty who was busy checking something at the only other occupied bed there. And of course, aside from the two brothers. For the first time, I was convinced that Sam wasn't aware of my presence as I entered the ICU. And for a second or two, I wasn't too sure that it was the same person I was seeing there next to his brother's bed that I had gotten to know over the past two days.

Sam seemed…I don't know if there is a right word to describe it. _Relaxed_ didn't even come close. All the underlying tension that had been ever-present during the past days seemed to have left him. Visibly. It showed in his stance, his movements, small gestures as he talked. I felt reminded of the expression of a lost boy he had worn the first time I had seen him in the ER waiting room. In the meantime, I had seen that expression shift from lost to worried, protective, angry, concerned. But now it was back to that of a relaxed young man. Or that of a little lost boy who had finally been picked up by his parents.

I had the impression that for the first time, I was getting a glimpse of the real, the complete Sam.

From my vantage point, I couldn't see his brother, but I could hear parts of their conversation.

"…unnecessary risk." I heard Sam say with a sharp gesture of his hands.

"Now come on Sammy…"

His brother's voice sounded gravelly from exhaustion and disuse, but stronger than I would have thought, with a deep timbre to it. I saw Sam roll his eyes slightly at his brother's use of the nickname, but it was the fond kind of eye-roll you'd give to someone for a habit you pretended not to like but were actually quite fond of. I got the impression that Sam would react differently to anybody else calling him Sammy.

"No Dean. It was an _unnecessary_ risk. Throwing yourself right at a Wendigo, what were you thinking?"

"That it had to die? It's what we do, in case you had forgotten."

"What, getting ourselves killed? That's a new one for me."

"The thing needed to die before the next Boy Scout camping group went into those woods, and you know that as well as I do. And I had a clear shot!"

Dean's voice was rising with a strong sense of authority in it. It was the voice of someone who was used to having the last word, but from his reaction it was clear that Sam was having none of it.

"Standing two feet in front of the thing isn't a clear shot, Dean. It's suicide."

"Now don't be so dramatic. The main thing is that the thing is dead, and we're both still alive."

"Yeah, and luckily it wasn't a close call in your case."

"Sammy…"

At that moment, Sam turned his head slightly in my direction, and I had no choice but to step closer towards Dean's bed, pretending that I had been walking towards them all along instead of standing there listening to their conversation. The expression on Sam's face didn't give away whether he had noticed my presence or not, but as I stepped closer he smiled at me.

"Ben."

I nodded at him, trying not to make eye-contact that would have betrayed that I had listened in on their conversation. "I heard the good news, thought I'd drop in for a second."

The smile widened. "Thanks. Dean, this is Ben. He's a nurse in the ER. Ben, this is my brother Dean."

I looked at the young man in the bed before me. Dean was no longer as pale as the last time I had seen him. He looked definitely a lot better already, though nowhere near healthy yet. His face was schooled into a neutral expression, but his eyes – green instead of Sam's hazel – were watching me warily. I felt strangely bare under his scrutiny, as if he was trying to figure out just by staring at me who I was and what dealings I had had with his brother. The fact that Sam had had close enough contact with someone during his unconsciousness to be on a first name basis with them seemed to unsettle Dean somewhat.

"It's good to see you awake again," I said quickly to quell the feeling of unease that was rising inside me under his gaze. "Your brother was worried about you."

One eyebrow rose silently and Dean gave a half-shrug. "Sam has a tendency to worry. All I want to know right now is when I can get out of here."

I could only stare dumbly at that statement. Dean might be awake again, but he had suffered a near-fatal blood loss not even three days ago. In his current state I doubted he'd be able to make it out of the bed without keeling over. In fact he looked all but ready to fall asleep again, and I didn't know what else but pure stubbornness was still keeping him awake.

"Well, you have to take that up with your doctor, Mr. Burkovitz." I smiled at him, then turned towards Sam again. "And I should probably get back to the ER now. I just wanted to drop in for a minute. I'll see you around, I guess."

Sam nodded. "Sure. Bye Ben."

I nodded at Dean, then turned around and left the ICU. When I was a few steps away, I heard their voices pick up again, but this time I didn't even try to listen. The little I had heard earlier had already confused me enough, I doubted that I wanted to hear more. Besides, I had a job to go back to.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

If Dean had thought a quick release was just a matter of will and determination, he was on the wrong track. Getting out of the ICU took another day, and his doctors refused to let him check out until they were satisfied that he had recovered sufficiently from the trauma and the blood loss. Which meant another three days of staying in the hospital. And even when he checked out after that, it was still against medical advice. But at least by then he was able to stand on his own two feet without falling over, and if he gave his body plenty of rest, took his meds and didn't pull his stitches, he'd recover at home nearly as well as in hospital.

Visiting hours outside of the ICU weren't as strict, so Sam was in his brother's room for most of the day while Dean was still in hospital. But even now that he was no longer looming the corridors and waiting rooms, it was hard not to notice his presence in the hospital. Sam simply had something about him that made you notice him, even if he was not trying to draw attention to himself.

Or maybe it was because I was trying to keep my distance from the brothers that I kept seeing them seemingly wherever I went. I hadn't really understood what they had been talking about in the ICU, but I had thought about it a lot. Especially about Dean throwing himself in front of a _Wendigo_.

That word had been bothering me ever since I had first picked it up in their conversation. The rest of what I had heard made sense – the brothers had been hunting something, Dean had gotten too close and had gotten hurt as a result. But the question what they had been hunting, what exactly it had been that had hurt Dean, was the one that was occupying my thoughts. Not only because it would explain what had killed all those hikers and hunters over the past weeks and months. But also because Sam's words suggested that hunting whatever it was had been their purpose for coming here in the first place.

"_It's what we do._" Those had been Dean's words.

And Sam's words had been that Dean had thrown himself right at a _Wendigo_. I had never heard of anything like it before, and while I'm not the biggest expert on all things nature, it sounded somewhat outlandish to me. Deer we had plenty in these parts. Occasionally bears. But a Wendigo I had never even heard of. So naturally, my first step upon coming home that evening had been to start an internet research. Despite the fact that my wife lovingly calls me a technophobe, I do know how to use a computer. Well, the basics of it, but definitely enough to go online, pull up a search engine and type in the word "Wendigo".

And the results were nothing like I had expected.

My first thought was that I must have misheard. I had probably misunderstood what Sam had said to his brother.

Or the young man had known I was standing there, and had been playing a joke on me.

But I knew that this wasn't it.

Sam hadn't known I was there. And I hadn't misunderstood. I had heard the word "Wendigo" clearly.

For over two hours, I clicked myself through articles and entries on forums about myths and urban legends. And no matter which link I followed, none of them gave me another explanation as to what Sam could have possibly talked about. Every hit the search provided came up with a result that discussed the same myth in one variant or other. And that left only one conclusion.

The brothers were crazy.

That was the only possibility that made sense. Sam and Dean Burkovitz were as crazy as they came if they honestly thought that a mythological cannibalistic spirit had been haunting these parts. These things were…legends. Bedtime stories, ghost tales that were told around campfires to scare Boy Scouts. They were all that, but one thing they definitely weren't. They were not real.

They couldn't be real.

So whatever Sam and Dean had encountered in those woods, it hadn't been a mythological creature.

Just because this legend rooted back to some Native American mythology and there had been Native Americans in these parts didn't mean any of that was true. No matter what all those new-age guys on those forums posted about it. There was a reason why things like that were called legends.

Legends didn't go around and kill people.

Even if the descriptions on those websites seemed eerily similar to what had happened to all those bodies that had been found, badly mutilated and torn apart, just pieces of their remains really. And even if the legend would explain why so many of those who had gone missing had never shown up again, dead or alive.

It was just a legend.

To believe that this was an explanation for what was happening here was crazy.

I finally logged off the computer and went to bed, convinced that despite how calm and rational Sam Burkovitz had appeared to me, he was a complete nutjob if he believed in that kind of thing.

And that was why I decided to keep my distance.

The problem was, I really liked Sam. I was aware of the fact that I didn't know him at all. He was just a patient's family member, and while personal sympathies always played a certain part in my interactions with family members, when it came down to it, it wasn't important. But I liked Sam, and I got the feeling that he was hiding far more than a young man of his age should have to hide.

But these raw and pure reactions that I had seen from him when he had been waiting for news on his brother's condition, the honest concern and devotion he showed, had touched me somehow. I had grown to like him, the way you are able to like a complete stranger who comes into your life by chance. And somehow I found it impossible to reconcile that with the image of a guy who believed mythical creatures were stalking these woods and killing people.

So I kept to the ER as much as I could over the next days. Or at least, I tried to. And I would have easily avoided the two brothers with my normal working schedule. But as it happened, one too many nurse called in sick, and with my double shifts the ER was actually overstaffed. So I found myself in the position that I was asked to help out on other floors during parts of my shifts. Which also implied the 2nd floor, where Dean's room was located once he was moved from ICU. So my decision to try and keep some distance to them was short-lived.

Maybe it was fate intervening.

Big words, I know. But watching them over the next couple of days I found that I hadn't seen anything yet as far as those brothers were concerned. Not by a long shot. And I probably only caught a few glimpses of the whole picture during those few days that Dean stayed in the hospital. But those glimpses were revealing. Probably far more revealing than either brother was aware of, because I was sure that otherwise they wouldn't have granted me them.

Sam had essentially struck me as a lone wolf before his brother had woken up. Everybody reacted differently in such a situation, of course, but there are some reactions that are inherent to human nature. Most people don't want to be alone when they're afraid, or grieving. They gather their family around to have someone to hold on to. And if that isn't possible, they open up to the nurses and doctors, latching onto every known face in an attempt to share their worries and fears.

Not so Sam.

Other than those few moments in the ER waiting room during that first night, Sam had dealt with whatever he was going through on his own, revealing, if anything, only glimpses of what was going on inside of him. He hadn't tried to strike up closer contact with anybody. He was friendly towards everybody, but he kept his clear distance. There was him, and on the other side of that huge wall he had built around himself was the rest of the world.

Now that Dean was awake again, I realized that in fact those two brothers were two lone wolves.

Sam was in the hospital from early morning till late afternoon, and I'm sure he would have stayed for the nights as well had not a combination of hospital rules, the nurses and his own brother stopped him from doing so.

To be honest, I had no idea what those two were doing together for the entire day. Especially when Dean was still so exhausted from his injuries that there was not much he could have been doing aside from lie in bed and doze. But still, Sam stuck around. And aside from the regular interruptions by doctors and nurses for examinations and medication, they stayed on their own. The two brothers in Dean's hospital room and the rest of the world behind the door.

And that seemed the way they wanted it. Whenever I was the one to interrupt their solitude to check up on Dean or get him to take some medication, it seemed that the level of tension in the room rose. In fact, coming into Dean's room for whatever reason was always an interesting experience.

Meeting Sam alone had been an enigma. Seeing him with his brother was adding yet another layer of mystery to it.

Sam always seemed wary of his surroundings, constantly looking over his shoulder, always assessing, worrying, keeping watch. But when he was with his brother, it all seemed different. Not so much because he relinquished the role, but rather because Dean took it away from him.

No matter that he was the one recuperating from a near-fatal blood loss, whenever the door to the room was opened it was Dean who visibly tensed on the bed, staring at whoever came in as if trying to assess the possible threat they posed. Sam was the one who kept up the conversation with the nurses and the doctors, trying to understand about symptoms and treatment, the necessary aftercare and the time his brother would need to recuperate. Dean kept pressing for a quick release, throwing silent glares at his brother whenever Sam intervened and tried to bring the conversation back to the details about his brother's condition.

I witnessed quite a few of those scenes over the days that Dean was in our care, and admittedly they didn't do much to raise my opinion of Dean Burkovitz. The way he kept brushing off his brother's concern, the way he tried to monopolize the conversations with the doctors, never minding Sam's questions and objections…there was just something in the way he did it that rubbed me the wrong way. It was the dominant undertone in everything Dean said and did that had me questioning whether that was their normal dynamic – Dean making the decisions, him calling the shots no matter what Sam had to say about it.

It seemed obvious whose shoulders the bulk of the responsibilities normally lay on, and it weren't Sam's. But I couldn't help but think that if Dean had seen any of the raw fear and pain Sam had displayed in the ER waiting room, he might reconsider that behavior. Sam had been caring far too much for his brother to simply brush it off like that.

There was an underlying older-younger dynamic to all sibling relationships, I knew that. I had a pair of them at home myself, and while my own children were currently in that phase where neither would have minded if my wife and I decided to sell the respective other on eBay, I saw part of that behavior mirrored in my own children. It was always easy for the older one to dominate the younger. But Sam and Dean were no longer children, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that this was exactly how Dean was treating Sam – like a child.

And seeing what I had seen, I didn't like it.

So yes, I might have been more brusque towards Dean than I normally am towards patients. And I actually pride myself with the fact that to me, personal sympathies don't play a role in how I treat my patients. But as I said before, I had grown to like Sam. And I wasn't too sure I liked the way his brother treated him.

The biggest mystery, however, was why I would even care about how one total stranger would treat another total stranger. As soon as Dean was released from hospital – which would be as soon as possible, judged by how strongly he pressed for release – they'd be out of my life and I'd never see them again.

The problem was that I couldn't help but care.

For three days I kept watching them while Dean recuperated, and I couldn't stop trying to figure those two brothers out even though I had the feeling I wasn't getting anywhere with that. There were simply too many contradictions. On the one hand they seemed close, so much closer than most other siblings I knew, but their dynamics were complicated. Not only the way Dean brushed off Sam's worry, or the way he tried to dominate decisions, but also the way Sam accepted that behavior with barely more than an eye-roll.

It was puzzling. Beyond puzzling. But after a few days, I got the feeling that maybe I wasn't meant to understand.

But of course, like everything since the minute Sam had arrived in the ER carrying his unconscious brother, things didn't go the way I imagined them. Of course the moment I had settled on simply letting the matter go had to be the moment where I was granted another insight. One that made letting go of the mystery of the Burkovitz brothers impossible for a long time to come.

What happened was that for the first time in all those days, I happened to talk to Dean alone.

It was the day of his release, and after morning checkup I had been asked to take Dean's release papers into his room so that he could fill them out and sign them. It was an ordinary process, something I had done an uncountable number of times before. So I didn't think much of it when I knocked on his door and with a few seconds delay opened it and stepped into his room.

Dean was sitting on the edge of his mattress, already fully dressed in jeans, boots and flannel shirt, and old and well-worn leather jacket lying on the bed beside him. Sam was nowhere in sight, for the first time that I could remember at this time of day. Dean had been rummaging around in a duffel he held on his lap but stopped it and looked up when I entered. Green eyes immediately narrowed at me, and he sat up straighter, with his shoulders squared. For a second I wondered whether he was even aware that he was doing it, but I quickly dismissed the thought. It was either second nature to him or a very deliberate act, and I didn't want to contemplate which of those two possibilities I'd rather have as an explanation.

"Doctor Berger asked me to bring your release papers. You still need to fill them out before you leave."

I held the papers out to Dean who grunted in acknowledgement and pulled them out of my hand. Using the tray beside his bed for support, he put the paper down, picked up the pen I had handed him along with the papers and started to write.

He didn't once stop or deliberate for long when filling out the requisite fields, and I couldn't help but wonder how often he had filled out papers for discharge against medical advice before. I had the distinct feeling it wasn't the first time. Not by a long shot.

"Sam's not here this morning?" I asked, mostly to fill the silence in the room while I waited for him to finish. But at the mention of his brother's name, Dean immediately stopped writing, head snapping up to look at me from narrowed eyes. It was impossible not to feel uncomfortable under that gaze, and I quickly hastened to add an explanation.

"It just seems unusual, normally he's here for the entire day."

Dean watched me for a few seconds longer, eyes still narrowed. Eventually, he gave the slightest shrug.

"He'll be here in time to pick me up."

And that was that. No explanation where Sam was or what he was doing, because it was none of my business. The message was clear. And even though it was not that hard to imagine that Sam was probably packing up his own things, getting ready to leave, it was a piece of information Dean didn't share with me. Instead, he silently continued to fill out the forms I had brought him. He didn't stop or raise his head to look at me when he next spoke, so I very nearly missed it.

"I…thank you, Ben."

I took half a step back, startled and unable to understand what he was talking about.

"What for?"

This time, Dean did look up at me, even though he wasn't quite meeting my eyes. He was uncomfortable, and the way he had stumbled over his own words when saying that simple thank you struck a chord in me. It was a variation of something I had already recognized in Sam. Dean was unused to saying thank you. Not because he was impolite, or ungrateful, but because he wasn't used to someone doing something for him that would require earnest thanks.

It didn't help that I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn't done anything for him that would require him to thank me, at least not if you discounted bringing him those much craved-for release papers.

Dean seemed even more uncomfortable that he had to spell it out for me, but he squared his shoulders and gave another shrug.

"Sam told me that you stuck around after he brought me here. And that you got him into the ICU outside visiting hours. Thanks for looking out for him while I was out of it."

I bristled at those words. The way Dean said it, he made it sound as if he was thanking me for babysitting his brother. But Sam had been holding his own. Considering the situation, he had been more than just that. Of course he had been worried, and scared. But Sam was no little child. He was a young man who had carried his injured and bleeding brother out of the woods, who had driven him to the hospital and carried him inside to get him help. Sam wasn't a little kid who had needed babysitting while his big brother had been unconscious. Yet that was exactly how Dean made it sound like, and it got me defensive before I even knew it.

"Sam didn't strike me as someone who needed looking out for. He was holding his own pretty well."

My tone had been sharper than intended, and Dean raised a silent eyebrow at me in reaction. It made me feel slightly silly, trying to defend his brother's capability to look after himself in front of the person who knew him a lot better than me, but I couldn't help it.

"Sam didn't strike me as someone who needs looking after."

The second eyebrow rose to join the first, and a slight smile played around Dean's lips for a few seconds.

"You got a point there, I give you that." He picked up the pen again and continued to write. "But Sam's got a tendency to worry when I get hurt."

No small wonder, considering that "getting hurt" in this case had meant nearly bleeding out in the woods somewhere. And yes, Sam had been worried. Worried sick, to the point of complete physical exhaustion. "A tendency to worry" nowhere near described how unraveled Sam had been while his brother's life had been hanging in the balance.

"I'd say that's normal if your only remaining family gets hurt."

Again he looked up, surprised that I knew about that fact. It took no big guesswork to figure out how I knew it, but he was surprised nevertheless. And then the shutters went down again, visibly. Dean returned to filling out his release papers, his face not showing what was going on inside his head.

But my curiosity wasn't satisfied. Hospital gossip had it that Dean hadn't been able to tell the sheriff what had attacked him in the woods, either. And I was sure that wasn't the truth. I still didn't know what to make of the conversation I had overheard in the ICU, but I knew that this was my last chance at finding out. Once the brothers left the hospital, I was sure I was never going to see them again.

This was probably my last opportunity to get some answers, and I knew that I needed answers to the questions that were keeping me up all night.

Dean signed the last page of his release papers and handed them and the pen back to me.

"There, all signed. Can I go now?"

I nodded slowly. "Sure. Though maybe you should wait for your brother, or have somebody walk you downstairs. You haven't really been on your feet for a couple of days, and the way to the exit is longer than you might think."

Dean smiled, as if the concerns I had voiced were nothing he spent a second worrying about. And while our hospital doesn't have a wheelchair policy that demands patients to be brought outside in one of those upon their release, I was serious in my advice to Dean against trying to take the trip out on his own. He might feel well and all right now, but he had been lying in bed for the better part of five days now. Walking long distances without exhausting himself was going to take another couple of days.

"Sam should be here soon."

That was all he said. As if Sam was under orders to come back at a certain time. But from what I had seen of Sam over the past days, I was sure it also had to do with the fact that Sam would _want_ to be back as soon as possible. He had barely let his brother out of his sight for the past days, and that wasn't going to have changed over night.

"Good, then you better wait for him."

Again, Dean's eyes narrowed at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to get up and leave the hospital on his own out of sheer defiance. But Dean merely shifted on the edge of the mattress and pulled the zipper of the duffel bag beside him closed. When I didn't make a move to leave the room but remained standing there with Dean's release papers in my hand, Dean cast a questioning gaze my way.

"Was there anything else I need to sign?"

I checked the papers, but as expected they had been filled out correctly and completely.

"No."

"So…?"

Dean made a circling movement with his hands, signaling that he wondered why I was still sticking around if all administrative stuff had been taken care of. He was trying to dismiss me, trying to get the door to close between him and the rest of the world. But the answers I wanted to have I was only going to get in here, and not if I left now. I scratched my head, but then I decided to simply press forward. After all, this was a two-sided thing. Even if Dean Burkovitz was going to brush me off, or consider me crazy, once he and his brother left the hospital we were never going to meet again. It shouldn't really matter that what I wanted to ask sounded ten kinds of crazy.

"This thing in the woods…" I started, and immediately Dean's head snapped up and his eyes narrowed at me.

"I told the sheriff and the doctors, I don't really remember what it was."

"I know. But you have to admit it's a strange coincidence, with all those people getting killed over the past weeks, and your wounds so similar to theirs. Nobody had really seen anything like it before."

Dean shrugged again.

"Probably a bear."

"There's not really any bears in these parts. Further north, but not here."

"Animals migrate. Bears too."

Dean held my gaze, trying to gauge my reaction to what he was saying. But I didn't waver under either the gaze or his half-baked explanations.

"Bears don't just attack people. Not so many over such a short span of time, anyway."

One eyebrow rose in challenge. "They could if they were hungry."

I shrugged. "Plenty of rivers and lakes all around. Lots of fish for the bears to feed on. There's no reason for them to come further south in the first place."

A cocky smile showed on Dean's face. "Maybe the bears don't like fish? Ever thought about that?"

"Plenty of deer in these parts, too. Plus all the other stuff bears might want to eat."

Dean shrugged. "Who knows what motivates a bear these days. I can't tell you."

The shutters were going down again, I could see that. Dean had enjoyed that small verbal sparring, but he wasn't willing to give up just the tiniest bit of information. And judged by that grin that was playing around the corners of his mouth, Dean had more information that he simply wasn't willing to share. Not if I didn't give him any reason to open up.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I pulled out the big guns. Or rather, the only big gun I had.

"What is a wendigo?"

To Dean's credit, he didn't let much show on his face. His eyes widened slightly, for the fragment of a second, then he carefully schooled his face into a neutral mask again. But what changed was the expression in his eyes as he regarded me. Dean was carefully watching me, assessing me as well as my question. And I had the impression that for the first time he really looked at me. Not as someone he had to deal with because of the situation he was in, or as someone who forced himself upon him. No, for the first time he was considering me as a conversation partner.

He didn't open up immediately, far from it. But my question had obviously struck a chord, and he was trying to gauge how to react to it. Cocking his head slightly to the side, Dean licked his lips before he answered, his words careful and deliberate.

"And why would you ask me that?"

"Because I have the distinct feeling that you're the one who can give me an answer."

"Then you thought wrong, Ben. Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about."

I shook my head. "You didn't seem to suffer from that confusion when Sam mentioned a Wendigo in the ICU."

Dean's expression darkened and he shifted slightly, a movement he restrained immediately, but I was sure that he had been about to get up and storm over towards me before he reigned himself in. It took a moment before he had overcome his momentary surprise and had his cocksure attitude back in place.

"Eavesdropping? Now that's just naughty, Ben. I'm sure your bosses wouldn't approve."

I shrugged, as nonchalantly as I could. Truth was my bosses probably wouldn't approve of me eavesdropping in on patients and then questioning them about what they had said, but I was fairly sure Dean was bluffing. He didn't strike me as the kind of person who'd involve authorities of any kind if he had any choice in the matter.

"Probably not. But they also know that in a hospital you sometimes simply overhear things."

"So you _over_heard something in a private conversation between my brother and me, probably _mis_heard it, too, and now you question me about it? Sorry buddy and no offence, but it's none of your damn business."

I took a step towards him without even noticing, but I saw how he tensed at my approach. However, I didn't care. I wasn't about to attack him, but I wasn't ready to leave without answers.

"What makes it my damn business, Mr. Burkovitz, is that this is happening in my town. I live here. I work here. I know some of the people who vanished, I know their families. The same families who were told that they couldn't even come identify the bodies because there was hardly anything left to identify. It is my damn business because this is the kind of town where the kids still play in the woods. My eldest is an Eagle Scout, okay? So the question whether or not I can still let my family out of sight without worrying if they'll be dragged into the woods and torn up by some…some _monster_ makes it my damn business. Do you understand that?"

I was yelling, I realized, but at that moment I didn't care. I still didn't know if I bought this whole idea of monsters and myths that were real. Probably the brothers were simply crazy, and there was nothing to it. But there was that one thing that didn't allow me to gamble on it. And that was my children. I knew that if I didn't get a definite answer from the man in front of me, I'd never be comfortable leaving them out of my sight again.

To Dean's credit, he didn't yell back at me, nor did he make any move to reestablish the physical distance that I had narrowed. Instead he regarded me for a long time, his green eyes boring into me as if he was searching for something. Finally, he sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"There are some things that you don't want to know about, Ben. Trust me on this. You might be curious now, but trust me that you do not want to know. Go home to your family and forget that you ever heard about it."

It was pretty much the confirmation I had wanted to hear, but it wasn't enough.

"Is it dead?"

"If you overheard Sam and me in the ICU, then you know the answer to that."

I took another step closer to him on the bed, effectively stepping into his personal space. And from the way he drew back, that was something Dean didn't like at all. But I didn't care. I made sure that he was looking at me when I asked the question again.

"Is that wendigo dead?"

From his position Dean had to look up to look me in the eyes, and he was anything but comfortable with that. His eyes were narrowed and his whole body tense, and I instinctively knew that if I pushed him just a little farther he was going to strike me, weakened condition or not.

But I didn't back down. I kept my arms at my sides in a non-threatening position, but I didn't break eye-contact.

"Stop worrying about whether or not I want to know that kind of thing. Just answer me that one question."

Dean looked at me for a moment longer, still assessing. Finally, he nodded.

"Yes, it's dead."

I took a step back, suppressing a sigh of relief of which I had no idea where it was coming from. Dean kept his eyes on me, head moving down a little now that he no longer had to lift his head to look me in the eyes. He was watching me curiously, as if measuring my reaction against some sort of expectation he was having.

"Was that the answer you wanted?" He asked, his voice measured and calm. "The wendigo is dead. The scary mythological creature that has been haunting these woods is dead and gone. Do you feel safe now, Ben?"

And I knew exactly what Dean was trying to say. I had gotten the answer I wanted, but that answer also meant I had to accept that something I had considered impossible just a few days ago was true. And that thought was maybe even more scary. Because if I accepted this as the truth, it bore the question what else that I had put off as impossible was in fact the truth.

Dean smiled at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You could just settle on thinking that I'm crazy. It seems to help some people."

I wondered how many people these brothers met in their line of work that Dean had an idea about various coping mechanisms. But that wasn't my main concern at the moment.

"What if it isn't? What if it comes back, or if there's another of those things out there?"

Dean leaned forward and before I knew what was going on he had snatched the pen out of my slack hand. Using the margin of a newspaper that was lying on his bedside tray for scrap paper, he started writing something down.

"I've never heard of wendigos hunting in pairs. They hibernate for years, decades even, in between their feeding periods. Sam and I thoroughly researched the history of the area, there were no signs that this was more than one of them in the area. And it takes decades, or even longer, for someone to turn into one of these things. It's not likely that you're going to have any kind of critter trouble again."

He finished writing and tore off the corner of the newspaper.

"But on the off-chance that this doesn't stop, or if anything suspicious happens in the future, call."

He handed me the pen and the piece of paper. Looking down, I found that he had written two numbers on it.

"One's my cell phone," Dean said in explanation. "The other is a friend. He's based not too far away. If you can't reach us, he can help. Or he knows someone else who can take a look."

I stared at the numbers, slightly dumbstruck, before I looked up at the young man in front of me again.

"What are you, some kind of monster-hunting task force?"

Dean laughed out loud. "That's one way to say it. Though the pay most certainly sucks, and it's not all as glamorous as you make it sound."

He looked me in the eye for a long moment, and his expression sobered instantly. I was struck by how different he seemed compared to the first time I had seen him. It was hard to imagine that he had been lying lifelessly in his brothers arms, closer to death than to life, a mere five days ago. Medically he was still a far way from okay, but there was this determination to him now, the readiness to square his shoulders under whatever responsibility he thought it was he was carrying. Like Sam, he was still a young man. But just like his brother, his eyes seemed far older than that. Two young men, hardened beyond their age.

I don't know why, but the realization made me sad. I couldn't help but think of my own children, and all the possibilities I envisioned for them. And then I looked at the young man in front of me and asked myself what had happened to his possibilities, and how he had ended up living this kind of life.

Dean cocked his head, and once more I had the feeling that he could guess what I was thinking.

"We're no task force, Ben. We're just the people who couldn't keep these things out of our lives. And trust me, it's not the kind of life you want to get involved in if you don't absolutely have to."

I drew breath to say something, although in all honesty I had no idea what it was that I wanted to say. Dean just shook his head at me.

"Trust me on this, Ben. Go home to your family and forget you ever met us. Unless something like this happens again, it's best if you never think of us again."

I didn't think hat was ever going to happen, but before I had the chance to say anything there was a knock on the door and a second later Sam stepped into the room. He stopped short when he saw me standing just a foot or two away from his brother, and as if sensing the earlier tension in the room, his eyes immediately went to his brother – assessing, checking over, assuring himself.

"Is anything wrong?"

Dean looked up at his brother, and the moment their eyes met Sam relaxed. Almost automatically, as if it didn't take words for his brother to communicate that there was nothing to worry about. Dean turned to look at me again before he answered.

"Nah, everything's all right. Ben just brought me my release papers. So, you got everything? Because I'm ready to spring this joint and get back on the road."

Sam rolled his eyes, but it was a good-natured gesture. "The only thing you'll be getting is plenty of rest. And just so you know it, you're not driving, either."

Dean looked scandalized at those words, eyes shifting between his brother and me as if asking Sam how he dared to talk to him like that in front of me. But Sam merely raised an eyebrow in silent challenge at him. It was a gesture I had seen not too long ago in Dean, and it made me smile to see the similarity, however small it was.

Seeing that Sam turned his eyes to me, I shrugged and raised the release papers slightly. "He's good to go, as far as the administrative stuff is concerned."

"Finally."

Dean slid off the bed and grabbed his duffel bag, only to have Sam take it out of his hand before he had the chance to make even the first step.

"Dude, what the…"

"Let's go, Dean." Sam quickly turned towards me. "Goodbye Ben."

I smiled and nodded my goodbyes, watching as the brothers left. Dean rolled his eyes, but he allowed Sam to carry the duffel bag as they walked out of the room. Dean was doing a good job of covering it, but his steps were slightly insecure as he walked out into the corridor. Sam seemed to notice it too, and while he didn't let it on too obviously he walked closely beside Dean, the free hand not carrying the duffel bag by his side but ready to reach out and support Dean should he stumble.

Maybe I had them wrong. Or rather, maybe I had been wrong with my first judgment of Dean. He seemed to be the dominant one, but their roles were far more complicated and complex than that. Seeing them walk down the corridor, moving in synch and aware of each other's presence right at their side, I got the distinct impression that their roles were much more fluent than I had initially assumed.

And if their life really revolved around all these things that most people didn't even allow to enter their nightmares, who was I to wonder about the inner workings of their relationship. I had absolutely no idea what it took to lead the kind of life that they did. But if the hardened and world-weary expressions in both their eyes were any indication, it was a life that took a lot and gave very little.

It made me understand a bit better why Sam had been so horrified to lose his brother. Being alone in the world that I knew was already a thought that seemed too horrifying for me to consider. Being alone in a world in which monsters were real seemed an even darker prospect, one that I didn't even want to consider.

This time they had been lucky. Dean had come out of this alive, and was healing relatively quickly concerning how bad his injuries had been. But as I was watching them turn the corner at the end of the corridor, Sam's hand surreptitiously hovering beside his brother's elbow to support him in case he needed it, I couldn't help but wonder if they were going to stay this lucky.

I only knew that I hoped their luck held on.

As I carried Dean's release papers over to the front desk for filing, I carefully folded the piece of newspaper and put it in my jeans pocket. In any case, I had a way to contact them. I couldn't help but wonder how many contacts like this these two made in their line of work – fleeting encounters with people who got a small glimpse into their lives before they left again. Somehow, I had the feeling I was not the only one.

But for two young men who had nobody in the world but one another, maybe it made life just a little bit easier.

I didn't see them drive away in their classic Chevy Impala, and ten minutes after they left an emergency came in that had me and a team occupied for nearly an hour, so my thoughts were quickly distracted from the two brothers again. I had a job to do, after all. One in which, as the past days had shown, I hadn't seen everything yet after all.

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SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN **TBC** SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

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One more (shorter) epilogue coming up still. Which is funny, seeing that the scenes that will be in the epilogue were the reason why I decided to write this stoy in the first place. It should be up soon, definitely quicker than this chapter was.

For now, thanks for reading, and as always please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	3. Epilogue Lies

It took a little while, but I finally got down to writing the epilogue. Which is funny considering that before I started writing the story, the first part of the epilogue was actually the first thing I had in mind. But that's life, I guess.

So here you go with the epilogue, hope you enjoy!

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**Epilogue**** - Lies**

Even after the Burkovitz brothers left the hospital, I couldn't help but occasionally think about them, wondering where they were and what was happening to them now. And I had to admit that occasionally, when I found that I couldn't sleep, or when I had a few precious free moments on my hands, I logged on to the computer and researched things.

If I believed what Dean had told me during those moments in the hospital room, then these things that I had put off as horror stories for all my life were real. Of course I didn't know if all of these things were true, but Dean had been sincere in his words. It had been a wendigo that had killed all these people in our area. And if wendigos were real, I couldn't help but think and try to figure out what else was, too.

Not that I ever found proof of anything. Not on the internet, I was realistic enough to know that. But those occasional minutes and hours of browsing got me thinking, and trying to imagine which of these things had crossed the brothers' paths before.

But the biggest reminder of the Burkovitz brothers came in the small scandal that happened nearly two months after Dean was released from hospital.

The fact that during the quarterly billing his insurance turned out to be fake should have surprised me. But it didn't, not really. That was the only thing that did surprise me – the fact that when I got to know about it, it didn't feel like a surprise, or a blow to the gut. Much more it felt like something I should have expected.

And probably I should have been more angry about it than I was. Fake insurance meant that the hospital was left with all the bills, that the entire treatment, the surgery, the meds, the aftercare, it all went unpaid. The hospital was left with all the costs, and of course an investigation of the events followed.

Two months is a lot of time in an ER. Of course you don't forget the dramatic cases, but you quickly forget the details, you remember names and injuries but the faces quickly elude you. I was convinced that not even the most thorough investigation would be able to turn up Sam and Dean, wherever they were now.

And that was the one thing I was sure of – their names really were Sam and Dean. Even when it turned out that no Dean or Sam Burkovitz had ever existed, their first names were real. What convinced me was the way they had used them around one another, determined and without hesitation. And the way Dean had called his brother 'Sammy', as well as Sam's reaction to that nickname convinced me fully. It was a behavior that had grown over years, and not a play with fake names.

While not many people remembered any specifics about the brothers during the insurance investigation, someone must have remembered that I spent time with the brothers, or rather with Sam, and might remember more about them.

So one morning I found myself faced with an insurance investigator who tried to get me to remember as many details about the brothers as possible.

I consider myself an honest man. I teach my children that lies will always come back to haunt you, and I try to practice what I preach, try to set an example for them that they will want to follow. I don't like lies, and I don't think I'm a skilled liar, either.

It wasn't the first time that someone had tried to rip off an insurance, and that the insurance company was investigating the case trying to find the culprit. Working in my job for as long as I had, I had seen that happen more often than I can remember. I had always helped, had always volunteered information and I had never lied.

I don't know why this time was different, but it was.

This time, I lied.

Deliberately.

If you ask me about it, I don't know if I could give a good answer as to why I did. A vague _there was something about them_ is all I could ever come up with. Something about those brothers, about the glimpse of their life that I had been granted, had me convinced that they didn't rip off health insurance to get free treatment for the fun of it. Oh, they had committed the crime all right, and probably very deliberately. But I had the feeling that the only reason for that was that in their lifestyle, it could not be avoided.

When you got hurt hunting a wendigo, you needed to make sure that hospital treatment was a possibility.

It was the explanation I gave to myself to ease my conscience. I didn't like telling lies, but sometimes in life a lie serves a purpose. It doesn't make telling the lie any better. A lie will always be a lie. But this time I lied to protect someone, and while that didn't make it all right, it made it bearable.

So when the insurance investigator asked me for a description of the two men who had come to the hospital posing as brothers, I gave him one.

_The younger one was tall, the older of average height._

Everyone at the hospital would have remembered how tall Sam was, the investigator already knew.

Was there anything else I remembered about them?

I did remember a lot, in fact. Sam had hazel eyes and was of muscular built, Dean had green eyes and was a bit more wiry than his brother. Both had fighter's physiques, and if someone had put me in front of a sketch artist, I'm sure I could have directed that artist into drawing two very life-like renderings of the brothers.

But I didn't tell the investigator any of that. I gave him generic descriptions, ones that could have fit practically anybody. What helped was that the tapes from the parking lot and ER surveillance tapes had long since been erased. At least I wasn't going to be caught in my lie.

_No, I don't remember the older one's eye color. Never really paid attention to that. The younger? Brown maybe, but I'm not sure. No real distinguishing marks that I could think of._

_Sorry that I can't help you any better, but it's been a long time ago._

What people had remembered was that the brothers had been driving an unusual car. Someone told the investigator I might be able to help. I was known around the hospital to have a soft spot for classic cars, and my uncle's infatuation with those had produced many a funny story I had shared in the cafeteria, or in a water cooler conversation. So I wasn't surprised when the investigator asked me if I remembered what car they had been driving.

_Yes, of course I do. A classic car like theirs, in pristine condition? It was a beauty._

And of course the next question was what kind of car it had been. And it was the one question where it paid off that everybody in the hospital had me labeled the resident expert, and nobody was going to doubt that I was telling the truth.

_A black '85 Mustang. A real beauty, I can tell you. They don't make cars like that anymore today. It's a shame, really._

And as much as I hate lying about anything, I couldn't even bring myself to feel bad after the investigator left again. I don't know why.

But maybe the reason was that I had the distinct feeling that these brothers had enough to deal with in their lives. I still vividly remembered Sam's despair when his brother's life had hung in the balance, and the look in Dean's eyes when he had told me that theirs was not the kind of life anyone would choose to lead.

I didn't like that the hospital got left with the bill, but I knew for a fact that it wasn't going to ruin anybody's life if it didn't get paid.

I wasn't too sure that the authorities locating the brothers and arresting them was going to leave other people's lives unaffected, though.

No, the brothers had enough on their plate as it was, dealing with all the things my nightmares were now made of. And if my lying to that insurance investigator in some, even the smallest possible way helped them to ease their life a little, I thought it justified the lies. Just this once.

***SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN***

Not thinking about two random strangers, no matter how intriguing they might be, isn't too hard when you have a fulltime job, a wife, and children to take care of. For months, my life took on a normal course. The investigation concerning Dean Burkovitz' insurance fraud died down without result, and life went back to ordinary.

A couple of months after I met the brothers, it must have been September of the same year, my family and I went to visit my in-laws in Wisconsin. It was there, in my mother-in-law's living room in a small suburb in Wisconsin, right in front of her TV, that I got a notion of how much life occasionally enjoys throwing you random curveball to remind you of things you thought long forgotten.

And it was a Breaking News broadcast, of all things, that was my curveball.

Breaking News broadcasts have a way of making you look up with their suspenseful music and dramatic voiceovers. But I was only half watching despite that, barely noticing that it was a bank robbery in Milwaukee the report was about. I was already about to look away and focus on my magazine again when I suddenly saw a face I knew.

My head jerked up so quickly that I nearly gave myself whiplash.

At first I wasn't sure, then I couldn't believe it. But what my eyes were telling me was real, though it took a few seconds for the message to sink in. The man showing on my mother-in-law's TV screen, in the middle of a bank robbery, with a security guard held in front of him and a dozen laser sights of sniper rifles focused on him, was Dean Burkovitz.

Or rather it wasn't, because Burkovitz wasn't his real name. But it was definitely Dean.

I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the question why Dean – and Sam, because I didn't have any doubt that the younger brother was close by – would get involved in a bank robbery, but I didn't even have time to contemplate.

"He's holding that poor guard hostage! The man is my age, probably trying to earn some money on the side, and those punks hold him at gunpoint because they need money? I really hope the police put an end to this, soon."

I really like my mother-in-law, even though that seems to be against some universal rule. But I do. She's a kind, sweet woman. And that was probably the only reason why I didn't start a discussion with her then, trying to defend the honor and motives of a man who, by all accounts, should be a total stranger to me. So I said nothing and silently watched the Breaking News report, even as my mother-in-law suggested that probably the bank was robbed because "those punks need money for drugs".

I watched until the special report ended, and stayed up till late in the night to learn how it all ended. And when I heard about the SWAT team storming the bank, saving most of the hostages, but the two hostages-turned-kidnappers-and-bank-robbers escaped, I couldn't help but be relieved.

Because I was sure that none of the people who had died in this bank had died at the hands of the brothers. In fact, I was convinced that if they hadn't been there, the body count would have been much higher.

And why I had that complete faith in two strangers, I don't know. But I had it.

The next day I dug through old newspaper articles in my mother-in-law's kitchen, trying to reconstruct what could have brought the brothers to Milwaukee. We weren't too far away from the city, and it was not difficult to find out what could have caught their attention.

A number of people who had robbed their long-term employers only to kill themselves later on. Crimes without reason and profit, all of them happening in banks or jewelry stores. I still didn't know much about all the things that were lurking out there. I had no idea what could have caused these things to happen. But I knew that if the brothers had intervened, it had been because something abnormal had been going on there, and they had tried to stop it.

I only hoped that it was gone now, that the brothers had been able to get rid of it even with the police surrounding the bank. And I hoped that this involuntary publicity stunt didn't make their lives any harder than necessary.

But no matter how much I tried to keep my eyes open for any sign of them on the news or in the papers over the following weeks, that one Breaking News report was the only trace of them I saw in a long time.

So long that I have to admit, I nearly forgot all about them.

In my defense, my real life took a turn for the worse over the course of the next months, the next two years even.

My job got busier and busier, my work hours bordering on obscene when the hospital decided to downsize its staff and make us work longer hours for the same pay. It didn't take long until my marriage and family life began to suffer from that as well, and after a few months I realized that I had to make a decision.

So I found a new job.

In a new city.

And making such a big break with two pre-teenage children who don't exactly grasp your reasons for tearing them out of their environment tends to distract you from watching out for two people you barely notice. I don't think I spent a single thought on Sam and Dean during that entire time, and in the months that it took my family and me to settle afterwards.

In fact, I didn't think about them at all until about a week ago, when the words _strange deaths_ caught my eye while reading the newspaper. I refilled my coffee cup and read the article more closely.

There was an old hotel complex just outside of town that had been standing empty for the past thirty years. The paper gave no reason why it had been closed down back then, but it mentioned _dreadful circumstances_ and a _family tragedy_. Now the property had been sold, and the new owner wanted to restore the old building to its original glory. It was in a beautiful location and would do well for tourism in the area. But according to the newspaper, the project was cursed.

Two land developers had met a grisly end there since the property had been sold. One had died in the breakdown of a staircase that a structural engineer had declared safe only two days previously. The other had fallen out of a second storey window for no apparent reason. A third worker had been hit over the head by a chandelier, but he had escaped with a bad concussion and a large bump on his head. He had later on told that he had seen a shadow on the ceiling, moving towards the chandelier just moments before it had dropped on him. Or, as he put it, before whatever it was had thrown the chandelier at him.

The owners of the hotel, the police, even the reporter who had written the article, put that statement off as confused ramblings and didn't pay much mind to it. But it gave the story about the deserted hotel an eerie feeling. And it got me thinking.

I was anything but sure about it, let me tell you. But I had read about these things before, during those first months after Dean had been brought to the hospital, when I had first researched all these legends and myths. I had read about haunted places before, houses here the spirits of dead people allegedly caused mayhem and havoc, even going as far as killing people who entered the house.

If there were things like wendigos, who was I to assume that there weren't ghosts, or poltergeists?

Nevertheless, I hesitated for a long while before I made the call. I deliberated for nearly two days, and only during a moment when my wife and children weren't at home did I finally dare to pick up the phone and dial Dean's number.

Even though I had all but forgotten about the brothers as time passed by, I had kept that small scrap of newspaper onto which Dean had written two phone numbers. And I still knew where I had put it, despite the months that it had been lying there forgotten, and despite all the chaos that moving from one city to the other implied. The scrap of paper was still stuck in the back of my desktop calendar from last year that I kept in the top drawer of my desk because I was notoriously lazy about transferring all the phone numbers and addresses with the start of a new year.

Now I pulled out the yellowed piece of newspaper, and for a few seconds just stared down at the numbers written down on it. Dean hadn't written any names, but the one he had identified as his number was a cell phone, the other one a landline.

I took a deep breath, picked up the phone and dialed the cell phone number.

I don't know what I had expected, but the automated beep, and the message stating that the number I had called was disconnected hadn't been it. A strange numbness settled in the pit of my stomach, something that might have been disappointment, and just to make sure that I hadn't misdialed, I hung up and dialed the number again. This time I checked each number as I punched it in, but the result was the same.

_The number you have called has been disconnected._

I put the phone down with a sigh, contemplating what to do next. But really, there was no other choice but to call the landline, the number Dean had identified as belonging to a friend of his who could help. Which I guess meant it was a friend who did the same things that Sam and Dean did. I dialed that number and put the scrap of paper down on my desk as I leaned back in the chair.  
This time, the phone rang three times before it was picked up.

"Hello?"

It was a gruff voice, that of an older man, and the tone suggested that whoever he was wasn't too excited about being interrupted by my call. It was neither Sam nor Dean, that I was sure of, but then again that much I had known. Now, how to tell the man what I was calling about.

"Hello. I'm sorry to disturb you. My name is Ben Taylor, and…"

"I don't know no Ben Taylor, son. How did you get this number?"

Defensive, and also a slight bit impatient. I suppressed a sigh.

"Dean gave it to me."

"Dean who?"

For a moment I thought that maybe I had dialed the wrong number, but then I considered the fact that Sam and Dean were hunted criminals since that event in Milwaukee. Surely a friend of theirs would try to protect them from people randomly inquiring about the brothers. The problem was, I had no idea what their real last name was.

"To be honest, I don't know. The only thing I can tell you is that his last name definitely isn't Burkovitz."

A sound came through the line that sounded suspiciously like a bark, but that probably had been a laugh.

"So, why did he give you my number then?"

"I…it's hard to explain, sir."

"Doesn't get any easier if you don't start."

He had a point there, I guessed.

"I was working in the ER of a hospital Dean was brought in a while ago. About two years ago now, I think."

I was still babbling, I realized, not really saying what I was calling about. Screw this, I thought. If the man who yet had to tell me his name thought I was crazy, he would simply hang up. I had nothing to lose.

"He got hurt by a wendigo."

I listened into the receiver with bated breath, but those words caused no reaction. Well, no real reaction. There was no laugh, no startled outcry, no telling me I was crazy, nothing. Just silence for a few seconds, until he realized that I wasn't going to tell him more.

"And? That still doesn't tell me why he gave you my number, or why you are calling me right now."

"Dean said to call if there ever was a similar problem again. That's why he gave me his number and yours. I tried to reach him, but his number was disconnected."

And I have to admit that I was a little worried that during those months that I had heard nothing of the brothers something had happened to either of them.

"You think that wendigo is back?" The man's voice tore me out of my silent musings. "I don't think that's likely."

"No. I…since I met Sam and Dean, I moved. And…I know it sounds crazy, okay? But there's this old hotel around here that they're trying to rebuilt, and people keep dying on the premises for no apparent reason. I don't know what to think of the whole thing. To be honest, I still don't know if I entirely believe this wendigo story. But I thought, maybe someone could check it out, see if I'm just imagining things or not. There's plenty of news coverage about it and…"

"All right, all right," he interrupted me. "You don't need to sell me something. Just give me the city and the name of the hotel, and I'll make sure that someone takes a look at it."

I relayed the information and gave him my phone number. He was about to end the conversation with the promise to call back and tell me what he had found out. The words just tumbled out then, even though I had no intention to actually say them.

"How are Sam and Dean?"

He laughed again, then, another resounding bark. "The boys have never been known for staying in touch. I wouldn't take it personally."

That was all he had to say on the matter, but judged by the fond way he talked about them I guessed that they had to be all right. Whatever that meant in their world. There was only one thing I had to ask before he hung up.

"And what's your name?"

"Singer. I'm Bobby Singer."

And then he hung up.

I didn't hear anything for a couple of days afterwards.

If I was honest with myself, I had been hoping that maybe Sam and Dean would drop by. I don't know why. They didn't owe me anything, definitely not dropping by for a friendly visit. Yet I caught myself looking up when I caught a black car drive by on the road. I couldn't explain it, not really.

But no black Chevy Impala drove up to the house, and I didn't see or hear anything else about them, either.

Instead, only this morning, my phone rang again.

And again, it was Bobby Singer, calling to tell me that the hotel was clean now, as he put it.

"A restless spirit," he said. "Another soul that didn't know how to let go."

"It let go now?"

"Yeah. So whatever they're going to do with that hotel, the spirit shouldn't give them any trouble anymore."

I had a lot of questions still, like how such an angry spirit was put to rest, and who had done it, but before I could even start to form any words in my mind, I heard steps through the line, then the sound of a door opening, adding outside sounds to the background noise that came over the line. Bobby Singer's voice interrupted me before I could bring another word out.

"Listen, I've got to hang up. I just wanted to let you know that the problem has been taken care of."

"Okay," I found myself saying. "Thanks for the call. I appreciate it."

"Yeah, no problem." He grunted something that sounded like a goodbye, then the line went dead. And I might have been offended at the abrupt end of the conversation, but I wasn't. In fact, after that call I felt strangely relaxed. And not only because I hadn't been paranoid about the hotel, and neither because nobody else was going to be attacked there.

No, the reason why that abrupt termination of the phone call didn't disturb me was what I had heard while Bobby Singer had been saying his goodbyes. The last thing that had come through the line before the older man had hung up had been a car driving up.

I'm not a real expert on cars, but there's one engine sound that thanks to my uncle and his passion for these cars I'll recognize everywhere. And what I had heard during those last seconds before the phone call had ended had been the sweet purr of a well-kept classic Chevy engine.

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*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*

**The End**

*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*SN*

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Thanks for reading. For the last time, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


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